


The Beach House in Winter

by Englandwouldfall



Series: Beach House [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: And Beaches, Angst, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Romance, discussion of triggers, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22575835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englandwouldfall/pseuds/Englandwouldfall
Summary: They're not exactly in a good place right now, so it was probably a bad idea to agree to a full Milton family reunion at their old summer haunt to mark a year since Cas' father died.Obviously, he did it anyway.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Beach House [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624372
Comments: 32
Kudos: 137





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all,  
> So this one is kind of heavy. Again - classic me, in that I definitely didn't intend to write it, but it kept niggling at me. So warning for: lots of stuff about the aftermath of being in an incredibly abusive relationship, and the stuff that entails, specifically about Dean's relationship with sex.
> 
> Kind of a continuation of stuff that was touched upon in the first part.

Dean’s only ever seen the Beach House in the summer, so it’s a little strange to pull up to the driveway and see the familiar silhouette framed by blue-grey skies. It’s March, which means it’s at least warmer than it was a couple of weeks back when there was an actual scattering of _snow_ , but pulling a jacket on to unload the car still feels… wrong.

Things are a bit awkward, anyway. 

They haven't touched for a few weeks, which is a little wild because usually they touch all the damn time. Not just sex (although, yeah, that’s a huge part of this whole thing), but it's the other stuff: hands on knees, shoulders brushing, fingers touching, curled up in bed. Now, Castiel seems hyper aware of their physical boundaries and a little… Skittish. Unsure. Dean doesn't blame him exactly, but it sure as hell doesn't help, and in response Dean’s been avoiding having a damn conversation with the guy. Cas moved into his poxy apartment just before Christmas, so it’s not like Cas hasn’t _noticed_ that Dean’s been distant and a little reticent about everything. Still, today they gave up talking half an hour into the drive and spent the rest of the journey with the radio blaring, filling the impala with classic rock to mask the fact that they weren’t having a damn conversation. 

It’s not good timing to be spending the better part of a week at the damned Beach House with every single one of Castiel’s siblings, but… It’s the anniversary of Chuck’s death and this is how the Milton siblings are marking the occasion, so obviously he’s got to be there.

Gabriel steps out to greet them, which doesn’t help Dean’s mood any. He wants to disappear without having any of the Miltons poke their nose into Dean’s goddamn business, because, really, the prissy routine Cas employs any time he has to deal with more than three of his blood relatives at once is warranted: his family are a royal pain in the ass, especially given they all find their new relationship status as a great source of entertainment. 

Gabriel is at least better than Michael or Lucifer. 

“The lovebirds are here!” Gabriel says, cheerful and effervescent and full of shit. “Good drive?”

“Just tell us where we’re sleeping,” Castiel responds, voice flat, already heading for the steps up to the front door. Dean nods in acknowledgement and follows him. 

Things have changed slightly since they were here over the summer: a coat of paint, for one, but everything seems… as eerily dissimilar as they were similar last time. The bones of the place are still the same, but it looks like Cas lost more of the ‘updating the place’ battles than he mentioned. 

“Coffee?” Gabriel says, prodding the brand new coffee machine. Castiel’s eyes settle on it and he doesn’t look all that happy about it, which Dean definitely doesn’t relate to. He could really go for coffee right about now. 

“Which room?”

“Hemingway,” Gabriel says.

“Fine,” Castiel says, heading for the stairs.

“Who pissed in his Cheerios?” Gabriel says, “You want coffee, Winchester.”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, glancing toward the stairs. “Which is — Hemingway?”

“Room next to where Cas stayed last time,” Gabriel says.

“I — stuff,” Dean says, gesturing at the bag in his hands and heading up the stairs. They still creek underfoot, which is reassuring, but the rickety banister has been fixed.

‘Hemmingway’ (Chuck named the rooms way back when and Dean’s never understood how any of them know which is which, because they’re not _labeled_ and there’s so many of them) is one of the other small, single bunk bed rooms, but there’s a little more space than the room Cas picked out last time. Or there would be, if someone hadn’t used the only square of floor to set down a double air bed, and folded bedding on top. 

“Cas,” Dean says, “You okay?”

“This is going to be uncomfortable.”

“We talking about the air bed here?” Dean asks, edging round the inch of floor available to set down his duffel bag. “Bagsee taking the side nearest the door.”

“This is — ridiculous,” Cas says.

“Yeah, little bit,” Dean says, half sitting on the bedside table. Mostly, he’s just glad they’re not sharing a damn room, unlike Hannah and Anna and, hilariously, Michael and Lucifer (at least, according to the last version of room arrangements Dean was told about; this has been their main source of conversation for the last two weeks). “It’ll be okay, Cas.” 

“Or we could just take the bunk beds,” Cas says, and something in Dean’a gut twists. It’s stupid, that after all this time that _longing_ can still sour and sting. “Dean?”

“I,” Dean begins, throat a little raw. Given they haven’t talked about the rest of the stuff, it feels juvenile to object to not sharing a bed. And now they can’t talk, because they’re surrounded by Miltons. “Whatever. I’ll get the rest of our stuff.”

After he’s fetched the rest of the stuff (there’s not a whole else to fetch, but at least then he doesn’t have to watch Castiel making up the single beds), Gabriel has made his coffee, and it’s easier to sit in the kitchen and get the general updates about Milton & Milton that Cas hates talking about and then Gabriel’s usual smart assery. 

Sam’s sends him a ‘how was the drive?’ message about half an hour after dinner of delivered pizza, at the point where Dean’s drinking a third cup of coffee (in the revamped Balthazar mug Anna had remade from the originals) from the new machine and mostly trying to give Cas some space, like that’s something either of them actually want. 

And, Dean’s done enough with his posturing to text Sam a truthful _kinda crap. Thinking I should have stayed at home._

_You finally gonna tell me what’s going on with you two?_

_Nope. Not the time,_ Dean replies. There’s not enough space round the table for everyone, now, so Dean’s mostly relegated himself to the corner of the kitchen while the others catch up. He saw most of them last at this god awful Milton New Years Eve, but even that didn’t have full attendance, and after Christmas apart from Cas (Dean, Bobby and Sam had their own thing, while Cas travelled halfway across the country to see Samandriel and his wife and kids; Dean was technically invited, but Christmas without Sam sounded kinda crappy. They already decided that next year Cas is staying for Winchester Christmas, which will be much better all round) he was pleased enough about actually seeing Cas to tolerate it.

_So you’re gonna risk ruining Cas’ time with his family rather than dealing with your shit?_

Dean can feel Cas’ eyes on him from across the room and, hell, he’s got a fucking point. 

And —- okay. He’s dealt with scarier shit than talking to Sam about his relationship, like Gabriel’s New Year’s Eve costume.

He stops by Cas’ corner of the table on his way outside. 

“Gonna call Sam,” Dean offers to Cas as an explanation, before he slips out the porch door and pads down the steps. 

Apparently, the pool is covered at this time of year. Dean’s never seen it like that, but he can’t imagine the tiny square of water is all that appealing in this weather. It’s dark, too, much earlier and much deeper than it ever is in the summer. It takes him a moment to feel out for the porch lights and then to flick the latch on the under-the-porch storage. He uses the light from his phone to pull out one of their usual deckchairs, and sets it out looking over the covered pool.

The sea air has more bite than back home, but it’s actually refreshing after the claggy heat of a house that full of people.

Dean sits down and calls his brother. 

He realises after they’ve exchanged ‘hellos’ that Dean has no idea what to say. 

“Dean,” Sam says, after a few moments of silence, that bit past his well of patience where he’s just done with all of Dean’s bullshit. It’s not surprising. Sam has been pretty dogged about trying to get him to open about what’s been going on for the last few weeks (he noticed within five minutes of their usual Tuesday board game night, however long ago, but gave Dean some peace before he started nagging him about it), and even more so in the last few days. “What happened?”

Dean clenches his jaw and looks at the pool.

“Did you…. Have a fight?” Sam suggests. His kid brother should probably win some award for patience, even if he hasn’t had to put in a lot of time as Dean’s cheapest therapist, recently. 

Generally, he’s doing pretty well. That’s probably part of why this has been eating away at him. 

“No,” Dean says, chewing over the words, “Not… not exactly.”

“Okay,” Sam says, “So….”

“It’s,” Dean begins, “It’s about sex.” 

“Okay.”

“I don’t know how to have this conversation with you.” 

There should be a special place in hell reserved for the awkwardness of discussing your sex life with your younger brother, in your boyfriend’s late father’s beach house. 

“Dean, I’m definitely team you having this conversation with Castiel instead, but if you need to talk it out first, then just say it.” Sam waits him out for a few moments, during which Dean resists the urge to visibly squirm. “We sailed past me being scarred by your sex life the second time I walked in on you as a teenager.” 

“I, okay,” Dean says, swallowing around the shame of the words. Sammy saw him in the hospital and he’s sat there for however many panic attacks. Dean’s a goddamn adult, and spent a lot of Sam’s tween years embarrassing him by talking about this stuff on purpose. He can talk about sex. “Before… before Alistair I was a little more gung-ho about sex.” 

“Yeah, Dean, I know.” 

The thing is, Dean always kind of like his men strong enough to manhandle him into a damn bed. He liked men’s men and feisty bad ass women, with curves and hips. He liked the Rhonda Hurleys and the Pamela Barnes of the words, and action heroes with give em hell attitude and the muscles to match. Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Dean liked picking up whoever at a bar and chasing pleasure; he liked fun, casual sex and just fucking going with whatever if it was hot, because why not? He’s always _liked sex_ for the easy, simplicity of it, and he’s always been pretty _okay_ with finding pissed off Castiel hot-as-hell, and all the rest of it. Considering how long it took him to come out, he’s always been hella-okay with liking what he liked, and screw what anyone else had to say about it, because it really wasn’t any of their damn business. 

And now, it’s different. There’s baggage. 

“Damnit, Sammy, I — I just hate feeling like I have to be so damn careful, so I, uh, strongly suggested I’d be into something to Cas, and then I lost my head, and I had a panic attack, and he freaked.” 

“Dean, when you say ‘something’ what are we talking here?” 

“Jesus, Sam. No, not like _that_ , — just. Cas being a little more, uh,” God, this is awkward. Next time he has a sex related crisis, he’s going to talk to Charlie. “Bossy.”

“Okay,” Sam says, “Believe me I _really_ don't wanna know, it's just...helpful context.” Dean makes a noise that he hopes conveys how much Sam is never allowed to bring any of this up every again. “So, you had a panic attack.”

It says a lot about this conversation, that Dean’s happy for a segue that starts ‘so you had a panic attack’. 

“Uh, two,” Dean says, The first time we were…. Close after that, it happened again, and…. We haven’t….” 

“Okay,” Sam says, “And when you say Cas ‘freaked’, what exactly are we talking about here?” 

“He,” Dean says, squaring his shoulders, “The guy won’t come anywhere near me.”

“Are we still talking about sex, here?”

“No,” Dean says, “I mean, he sits on the other side of the goddamn sofa, gives me a _wave_ hello when I get home from work. Sammy, he’s made up the fuckin’ single bunk beds for us. I’m some fragile fucking princess all of a sudden, and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Did you _talk_ to him?”

“What am I supposed to say?” Dean grouses, “Hey, Cas, it makes me feel insecure when you look like a dear in headlights when you accidentally brush past me in the kitchen.”

“Uh, yeah pretty much,” Sam says, “Cas is pretty good at this stuff, Dean. He’s just --- trying to be respectful of your personal space.”

“He’s acting like I’m a _wounded animal_.”

“What did you say, after?”

“After what?”

“After your initial panic attack,” Sam says. Dean exhales and grinds his teeth together. “You did _debrief_ in some way, right?”

“Sam,”

“Come on, Dean,” Sam says, “I’m not a high school teacher. I shouldn’t have to tell you you need to communicate about sex.”

“That what they teach high school kids?” Dean asks, “Pretty sure I skipped Sex Ed.”

“That actually explains a lot,” Sam says, then his voice crosses over into that ‘I’m being sensitive’ now shtick, which is normally at least a bit annoying. “Dean. You and Cas have talked about this before.”

“I’m fed up of talking about my fucking feelings, Sam,” Dean says, “Not about _Cas_ , about goddamn _sex_ I’m sick of it. I don’t --- I don’t want to still have to deal with this anymore, Sammy. It’s been _years_. I’m over it. I’m fucking _over it_. My life isn’t a _damn thing_ like it was back then.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam says, “But if you were Cas, how would _you_ be feeling right about now?”

“A goddamn guilt trip, Sammy. Really?”

“Whatever, Dean, I know you. What‘s the real reason you haven’t talked to him? You have about everything else. Why is _this_ different?”

“Was gonna,” Dean says, his left hand feeling out for the gauge in the wood from when he started carving out their initials. It’s the right chair, and there’s something comforting about the solid wood under his fingertips. “I, I wanted to talk about it, once I’d —- processed, and then the second panic attack freaked me out. It… it shouldn’t’ve happened. Wasn’t pushing any boundaries. It was hardly anything, and I just — what if I’m backsliding?”

“Then you’ll deal with it,” Sam says, “You’ve done it before, Dean.”

“But I don’t _fucking want to_ ,” Dean spits out, digging his fingernails into the wood. 

“You need to talk to Cas.”

“Yeah, thanks Sherlock,” Dean rolls his eyes. 

“What else did you expect me to say?”

“Dunno,” Dean says, “You could tell me that it was just a freaking blip and it’s never gonna happen again.”

“If you wanted someone to spout sunshine and rainbows at you, you should have called Garth.”

“Jesus,” Dean says, “Imagine _that_.”

“Stop stalling and go talk to Cas,”

“ _You_ talk to him.”

“I draw the line at talking to your boyfriend about your sex life,” Sam says, and that kind of makes him smile, because Sam probably actually would if he really thought Dean couldn’t handle it.

He can, though. Sam’s right. He can talk to Cas about all of this, he just doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t really want to acknowledge its happening. 

After Sam’s hung up, Dean scratches at the groove in the wood and exhales. He carved it there because he wanted some permanent record of the summers they spent here, and now Castiel lives in his apartment. They’re permanent now. Dean’s damned sure about that. 

When he abandons his solitary deckchair by the pool and heads back into the kitchen, the crowd has thinned out onto the porch deck and the rest of the house. Apparently at least a couple of the Miltons smoke these days, and are using the big picnic tables as a good spot to light up, and he can hear the TV blaring from the sitting room. 

Course, it’s still his luck that the people that are still in the kitchen are talking about him. 

“What’s up with you and ken doll, anyway?” Gabriel asks, whisky in hand. 

“Nothing,” Castiel returns, voice ice cold as he washes up glasses in the sink.

“Cassie,” Anna says, coaxing. 

“Yup, it’s a load of _nothing_ that you’re projecting all over the place.”

“Uh, hey,” Dean says, clearing his throat. Gabriel looks decidedly unbothered about being caught mid conversation, but Anna frowns slightly. 

“Dean,” Cas says. He looks tired and drawn out, and Dean really should have squared all this way while they were at home. This is going to go down in record as really shit timing all round. “Do you want a drink?” 

“Later,” Dean says, “Cas. You wanna go for a walk?”

“All right,” Cas says, mouth still tight and unhappy as he slips past Gabriel and Anna to get their jackets.

They start the walk down to the beach on automatic.

It’s empty, obviously, because it’s cold and late, but hearing the waves crashing is still kinda nice, and it’s always had that comforting familiarity. 

Cas sits with his back ramrod against ‘the cliff edge’, a respectable few inch gap between them and Dean’s gut aches. He wants Cas to just… sit close enough that Dean can feel his body heat. Rest a head on his damn shoulder: touch. 

Dean buries his hands in his leather jacket and looks out over the sea. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t really know what you’re apologising for.”

“Cas,”

“I don’t know what happened.” 

Dean exhales. That’s fair. Dean basically retreated into his head to lick his wounds and freak out for the better part of six weeks. There’s no reason Cas would know what was going on, except that the last few interactions they had before Dean started hibernating were a total shitshow.

“My goddamn head happened,” Dean says, squaring his jaw, “Alistair happened.”

Castiel stills the way he usually does whenever his name is bought up. 

“It’s --- sex,” Dean says, which Castiel knows, beacause he was in the damn room when all of this spiralled out of control in the first place. “It’s… complicated for me.” 

“I know that,”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “But you don’t… fuck, I hate talking about this.”

“Did I,” Cas begins, turning to fix that blue gaze on Dean’s cheek. He wouldn’t be able to see it properly in this dark, even if he wasn’t avoiding his eye contact. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Dean says, “Hell no. This is pretty much all on me, Cas.”

“I know that sex is a trigger for you, Dean.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “Know you know that. You pretty much got the memo on that about day dot. I just. God, Cas, I hate it. I _hate_ that he still has this fucking power over me. That _any of that_ has any goddamn relevance on what’s going on with us.”

“Be that as it may,” Castiel says and, god, Dean’s always hated the way Cas gets posher when he’s feeling insecure, but mostly he just hates that Cas _feels_ insecure. “You haven’t had a real conversation with me for a month.”

And, damnit, he’s actually upset, too. 

“That’s a total exaggeration.” 

“Talking about your brother doesn’t count.”

“You gonna give me a hard time, or are you gonna let me explain?” Dean says, which has Cas’ expression thin, and then neutralise; robo-Cas. “You remember,” Dean continues, “How I used to be. About sex.”

Cas frowns.

“Come on, Cas, you gave me shit about it for most of my twenties,” Dean says, which is true. All of it makes a lot more sense coloured with jealousy (sometimes that still hurts Dean’s head a little, and the irony of it all keeps him up at night every so often), but Cas used to ride his ass pretty hard for his casual attitude towards sex. He used to look a _lot like_ the unhappy, displeased expression that he’s wearing right now, when Dean would talk about one night stands and disappear to hook up with girls on the beach, or whatever he else. He’d be vaguely disapproving and hilariously prudish about it, which it figures was just a cover for being jealous. “You know, sleeping around.”

“Is this supposed to be making me feel better?” 

“Doubt this is gonna be that kind of conversation,” Dean says, with a bitter, half smile, “Look. After… after Alistair, I didn’t have sex at all for like, a year. I had — well. Other stuff on my mind, for the most part. Then I realised Alistair was the last person I’d slept with, and, well,” Dean says, scattering the sand under his fingers and exhaling. That was a bad day, even though it was fucking ridiculous; just because Alistair was the last person to touch him, it shouldn’t have suddenly felt more real or raw. It didn’t actually change anything, but all of a sudden it felt like his skin was crawling with his _touch._ “You think I’m a basket case now, you should’ve spoken to me that year.”

“I don’t,” Cas says, “Think that you’re a basket case, and I wish I _had_ spoken to you that year.”

“Yeah,” Dean exhales, “Know you do. Personally, I’m okay with you missing that whole shitshow.” 

It’s not that he doesn’t think Cas would have been able to handle it, because he does. Cas has more than demonstrated that he has the patience and commitment to deal with Dean’s particular brand of baggage, it’s just that he’s not sure that Cas could see him how he sees him _now_ if he’d seen him _then_. Sam still sees him as breakable and that’s okay. He’s come to terms with it. He’s not sure that his pride could have taken Cas seeing him that broken, too. 

“Dean,”

“The point is,” Dean says, “Me and my at-the-time therapist figured it would be a -- - a trigger, but I got it into my head that I’d feel better, if I had that part of my life back. Sex. We talked about a lot and like a month after, maybe, I went to a damn bar to try and pick up the least intimidating person possible. Went home with this five foot nothing blonde chick and, uh, I had to leave straight after to throw up on the street. Man, she must have thought I was a jackass,” Dean says, and he’s already tired of this conversation. He doesn’t want to have it. Doesn’t want to talk about it. “Wound up having two fucking days of panic attacks and --- I had to call Bobby and have him come babysit me cause Sammy was at school which was goddamn humiliating. Was pretty much convinced that that was it for my sex life for the rest of my fucking life, but… obviously, it got better, but --- I’m pretty fucking aware that I’m not the guy who tried on Rhonda Hurley’s underwear in the back of her car, because she said it would be hot. I have to…. Think about it. Check in with myself to make sure I know where the exits are and that whoever else is in the room would back off if I _breathed_ the word no, and…”

It’s hard to explain how it feels. To have such a complicated cocktail of emotional baggage that comes with being turned on, that he has to sift through before he can work out whether or not it’s a good idea. And, Dean’s not like that, naturally. He doesn’t _sit and think through the damn implications_ , he just acts. He’s instinctive and a little hedonistic and pretty good at going with the damn flow, and it’s jarring and frustrating, and it feels like he’s been _fucking cheated_.

Mostly, he’d romanticise it in his head (and _obviously_ all of that other stuff is there too), but if you strip it all back, he’s wanted to to have sex with Cas for as long as he’s wanted to have sex, and when he thought about it, he certainly didn’t have to wade through all of this crap first.

“You were always right,” Dean says, “About cheap sex not being as fulfilling as sleeping with someone you’re crazy fucking in love with. And, I guess, I --- I could deal with jumping through those bullshit barriers for a one night stand, or whatever. It didn’t feel like an issue, because it was just -- just a one night stand. But… with you -- lately, I feel like --- like I have to be _cautious_ all the goddamn time, and I feel like I’m being _robbed_.”

“You told me that one of the best sex dreams you’ve ever had featured my ‘ _thundering I-will-smite-you-rage’_ and that my ‘authoritarian shtick was hot’ and then I pinned you to the bed with my thighs and you had a panic attack.”

“Yeah, it _is_ hot. I’ve been into you all powerful and bossy since I was fifteen,” Dean says, because it’s all true. At nineteen, after one of their bitter fights, he did have one of the hottest sex dreams of his life, starring Cas’ thundering anger, Cas telling him to shut up and stripping him of his damn clothes without saying anything else and fucking him against the wall. If Alistair hadn’t happened, that night would have been the hottest thing that ever happened to him, but Alistair _did happen_. “Hell, Cas, most of the reason I ended up sleeping with Alistair in the first place was ‘cause he was dangerous and not all fucking bothered what I wanted, and that kind of worked for me.”

“I don’t appreciate the comparison.”

“There isn’t one,” Dean says, “That’s not what I meant, at all. I just mean -- I accepted this crap about myself a long time ago and I don’t goddamn want him to _take that_ from me.”

“So you used me to test your boundaries,” Cas supplies, which throws him for a minute, because...

“Sounds pretty damn manipulative when you say it like that.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, “That is the exact definition of what you did.”

And, okay. He's not wrong. He’s _not wrong_. Dean wanted to feel like he had some level of control over any of this and he _wanted_ to revel in the fact that Cas is badass and awesome and all kinds of hot, and he wanted to chase all the rest of the stuff out of his head , just for a little while, to live in his body rather than his head. He _did_ want to test his boundaries, because every sense of justice Dean possesses is screaming out that those _rules shouldn’t apply to Castiel_.

When they were twelve, Cas fell down the Beach House porch steps running to the beach and Cas, for some reason, was surprised that Dean hung back while he dabbed at his bloody knees with kitchen roll. They wound up staying hanging out at their deckchairs while everyone played some game or other at the beach, and Cas looked so damn _pleased_ that Dean decided to stay. He smiled this wide, eye-crinkling smile that Dean had never seen before, and Dean’s not sure his heart ever really recovered from it. 

Cas _loves him_. He’s about as malevolent as a dandelion. Why the hell can’t his body get that memo?

His mouth feels dry.

“I — I hate that I want this stuff. I hate that I can’t fucking control how I feel and admitting that _any of it_ has anything to do with _us._ I —- I wasn't thinking about it like _using you._ ” 

“No,” Cas says, “You weren’t thinking about me at all.” Dean blinks, stomach dropping. “No, I don’t mean like that,” Cas says, “This isn’t supposed to be a guilt trip. Manipulation isn’t usually calculated; generally it’s someone needing something enough that they are not able to think about other people.”

“And, what? I needed you to pin me to the bed with your freaking thighs and trigger a damned panic attack?”

“I doubt that was your intended end goal.”

“Cas.”

“Why didn't you just tell me?”

“Because,” Dean says, still looking at the sand. There’s a lot of reasons. One of them is the simple fact that is straight up shit to tell someone you’re in love with that there’s lingering dissatisfaction with your sex life, especially when it’s _nothing to do with Castiel_. It’s not like it’s bad sex, either, because Cas is freaking dynamite in the sack. Dean’s the one who can’t goddamn relax, because sex is so tied up in vulnerability and panic and _fear_. Everyone is so goddamn sensitive about sex, though, and it takes someone really freaking secure not to jump to the conclusion that they’re crap in bed. Cas _is_ probably that secure, because he’s kind of shameless and brilliant and gets that some of Dean’s wiring is crossed. Mostly, he didn’t say anything because Dean knew it was goddamn _stupid_ to go out of his way to press a bruise to see if it would hurt. If he’d told Cas he wanted him to act all bad ass and hot in the bedroom because it would have been the idea of his teenaged selves wet dream, and Dean was fed up of being ‘sensible’ about sex, and now that they lived together and basically had sex all the damn time, it was beginning to grate on him, he’s pretty sure Cas would have tried to reason him. If Dean had said _this is a known trigger but I wanna do this anyway, because I wanna feel like I have some control over my fucking life_ , Cas would have pulled out the kid gloves and wanted to freaking talk about it for the next six months. “I — guess I didn't think you'd go for it.” 

“That's where you're wrong,” Cas says, “Dean. Perhaps I would have had qualms about the _timings_ , but… if there’s anything I can do to help you heal.”

The concept of that hurts his head. 

“My objection isn’t wading in, it’s not knowing what I am walking into,” Cas says, voice soft and low. Cas is too good for him a lot of the time. This is one of those occasions. “Dean, I didn’t know what I’d _done._ One minute, you were _in it_ with me, and the next you’d locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to speak. I — I didn’t know if I’d misread something, or—- hurt you.”

He knew he screwed up. He hadn’t really gotten around to processing _how badly_ he’d screwed up. 

“No, Cas,” Dean says, “I. I _was with_ you. It… you were perfect. It’s my fucked up broken head.”

“Dean, you’re _not broken_.” 

And that’s just hilarious.

“Cas,” 

“Dean, if I had _known_ we were tight rope walking near a potential trigger, I would have talked to you about it before, checked in with you, and been prepared. Dean. I know you are not a cautious man. Allow me to take on some of the burden of this.”

That irks him, even though Cas isn’t doing anything wrong. If someone wrote a goddamn textbook, it would look a lot like the Cas method of wading through Dean’s shit. It’s just… there isn’t really anything anyone could say that wouldn’t grate on all of his nerves. It’s the situation that’s a sack of shit, rather than anything else.

“I don’t _want_ there to be a goddamn burden.”

“No,” Cas says, “But you cannot magic away any of the things that happened to you.”

“You’re the love of my fucking life,” Dean says, “It should all just _work out._ ”

“Ah”, Cas says, finally breaking down those physical barriers to nudge him with his shoulder, “But, to quote the love of _my_ life, ‘sorry, sweetheart, we’re are not living in a Disney movie.’”

Dean snorts and sways into his space, resting his head on Cas’ shoulder, and that’s so much better. Cas rests a hand on his knee and rubs his thumb over the flesh. 

“It is going to work out, Dean,” Cas says.

“Yeah,” Dean mutters, because he does _know_ that. He probably wouldn’t have pushed at any fucking barriers if he wasn’t sure that they could handle whatever came at them because Cas being in his life is a lot more important than _one_ aspect of their relationship. “Except now I’ve made it worse. Last time… you barely touched me and my head —”

“ I shouldn’t have tried it on until we’d discussed what happened before.” 

“You didn’t fucking ‘try it on’, Cas. We were making out on the sofa. It’s not like you were out of line. Hell, Cas, it’s not like you stuck your hand down my goddamn underwear. It was through my fucking clothes.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, gently.

“No, man, I get having a freaking meltdown about the other thing, but you — my goddamn boyfriend touches my dick through my fucking jeans and I have a damn panic attack? And now you won’t — you’re scared of coming anywhere near me.” 

“Dean, you wouldn’t tell me what happened,” Cas says, “I didn’t _know what was going on in your head._ Dean. I didn’t even know this was bothering you.”

He prefers Cas’ method of dealing with this than Sam, because Cas is much more likely to call Dean out on being a total asshole (in so many words) than his kid brother. Cas’ voice has a little heat, but that’s good. He’s always liked it best when Cas is simmering with emotion rather than resolute and stoic.

“I —- sorry.”

“I don’t need you to apologise for the way your trauma affects you,” Cas says, “I just need you to give me all the information I need to help you. “

God, Castiel is perfect. 

“Yeah, well I don’t always know,” Dean says. 

“You knew that suggesting I be more… physically assertive was likely to be a trigger,” Cas says, “And you knew that you were… dissatisfied.”

“That’s —- that's a strong way of putting it,” Dean says, “Cas.”

“It’s cold,” Cas says, drawing himself back in and standing up. He’s got a point; the seeped through his jeans and a numbness has crept into his bones, but Dean’s pretty sure Cas is just trying to end the conversation. “We should go back.”

“Cas,” Dean says.

“Thank you for talking to me.”

“Don’t thank me for that,” Dean says, “Cas, it’s been weeks. I should’ve —- should've talked to you about it weeks ago. I just…”

“This is difficult for you,” Cas says, holding out a hand to help him up, “I know that.” Cas finishes, in a way that feels very final. End of freaking discussion. 

They walk back almost holding hands, and Dean doesn’t really know what to feel about it. 

When they get back in, he avoids as many Miltons as possible and heads upstairs to take a long shower, mostly to get some distance (finding somewhere to be alone in this place is a damn miracle) and also to centre himself, physically. The key to making sure this shit is in control after talking about it is trying to get himself in his body rather than his head, so turning up the shower till it’s just shy of scolding helps and spending a little too long scrubbing every inch of him clean is a good strategy. He gets fully dressed into pyjamas before he leaves the bathroom (went out and bought them, because no damn way is he walking around with his scars on show with this many of Cas’s brothers around) and tries to prepare himself for the reality of spending the damn night on the shitty bottom bunk, hearing Cas breathe but being too far away to touch him.

Except, when Dean gets back into their room, Cas has redone the beds so that the single duvets are stretched horizontally across the double air beds. 

“Hey.”

“Hello Dean,” Cas says, from the far side of the air bed. It’s technically the wrong side of the bed for Castiel, but it puts Dean closer to the door, which is good. “I realised that ‘now you’re scared to touch me’ was more directed at casual physical contact than sexual, and that you wanted —“

Dean doesn’t let him finish, exactly, but instead crawls into Cas’ side of the bed and wraps his arms around him. God, that’s good, and then Cas kisses him (it’s a brief thing that’s so PG-13 that Dean kind of wants to scream, but it’s not like that isn’t probably a good idea) and —- Dean has really, really missed this. 

“Dean,” Cas says, after a little while. He’s settled with his fingers tracing up and down Dean’s spine under his shirt, and it’s pretty much better than any hot shower to bring him back into his body. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Dean says, “Fuck, Cas. I’m handling this all wrong. Pushing you away and pushing at these walls, when I should’ve just let it be. I don’t need to be that guy who was pretty gung-ho and cavalier about sex, like when I was twenty one and basically kind of a slut.” 

“I _want_ you to enjoy sex every bit as much as you did before Alistair.”

“It’s not like I don’t,” Dean says, “But, there used to be this freedom with it. I don’t know, Cas, it was just uncomplicated and fun, and — I’m not. I’m not comparing our sex life to me and anyone else, but … the potential of _us_ before Alistair.”

“It’s difficult for me to understand,” Cas says, “But, I am trying.” 

“I know,” Dean says. A lot of his unease has melted away under Cas’ touch, and maybe it’s easier to talk about this stuff on a crappy air bed with Cas’ legs tangled with his than it is on the beach in the dark. “You pissed at me?”

Cas exhales. 

“Pissed isn’t the right word,” Cas says, slowly, ‘I am… frustrated and upset.”

“About?”

“Six weeks, Dean,” Cas frowns into his skin, “I just wanted to know what _happened_ and you wouldn’t talk about it, and I couldn’t push it because I didn’t know _why_ it happened. I am — frustrated that you didn’t discuss any of this with me before anything happened, and that it took so long for you to bring it up afterwards, and that it has to go through your brother before you could talk to me. I’m upset because I hate that you feel like this, and because I _did hurt your recovery_ , Dean, and you let me. I… I was trusting your judgment and, perhaps I should have — been more proactive, and I know you well enough that I should have seen through your ploy, and I didn’t. So I suppose that I am pissed at myself, but mostly I am just…. worried about you.”

“I’m okay,”

“You’re brave and resilient and wonderful,” Castiel says, “And you are also pig headed and obstinate: I have known this since we were teenagers.”

“It’s just less cute when you have to live with it.”

“I wish you hadn’t done it,” Cas says, “But you are every bit as cute as you ever were.”

“Didn’t mean for you to get upset.”

“Yes, I know that,” Cas says, breathing out slowly, “But… Dean. This _is_ upsetting. It is upsetting that any of it happened to you and that there are consequences for now. Don’t hide things from me to protect my feelings.”

“Kay,” Dean says, running the idea over his head. It feels… okay. Doable. “You wanna talk about the Sam thing?”

“No,” Cas sighs, “I’m being childish. I am glad you talk to your brother. It’s a good thing.”

“Think you’re being pretty reasonable.”

“I would rather talk about how long you’ve felt like this,” Cas says, voice a little precarious all of a sudden, “Because —- I thought everything was fine.”

“Cas,” Dean breathes, drawing back to sit up and look at him. This is why all of this is so damn complicated. Of course, Cas is gonna take this and blow out of proportion, like Dean is actually unhappy, and he’s not. He’s not _unhappy._ He’s just — frustrated, sometimes. “I’m not _unsatisfied,_ I just…” he trails off, because he’s not sure how to convey any of this to someone who doesn’t intimately understand how it feels to have your wiring so messed up.

“Friday after my birthday, you came home late in your damn wonky tie and your trench coat, all prissy cause you’d spent the later part of the day in court trying to save a damn soup kitchen, and you looked… freaking incredible and cute as hell and I had that moment where I got to just revel in the fact that you’re a total badass adorable little weirdo, and all I freaking wanted to do was jump your damn bones in the kitchen, and I didn’t, because I’d had a shitty therapist appointment that morning, and cause I’d opened the scotch Bobby got me for Christmas when I got home from work, and because I kinda wanted you on the damn kitchen table, and I actually have no freaking idea how my head would deal with that, but to work it out I’d either have to trial and freaking error it, or spend however long willingly opening that gate to hell to work out whether or not that ever happened and was likely to result in me having nightmares for the next week and a half,” Dean says, “It,” Dean trails off, because he doesn’t really want to get any deeper into this. He doesn’t want to. “There’s a lot of bullshit associations, in my head, and I basically have to do a full mental debrief after every time we sleep together, and —- Cas, a lot of time I wish I didn’t even _want_ to have sex, because it’s such a fucking minefield, and then _that_ just —- I get so goddamn _angry_ about what all of this has cost me.”

Cas kisses him, and it’s kind of perfect.

"I'm sorry."

"It's," Dean says, running his tongue over his teeth and trying to pick out the right words. "It is what it is."

“You know I don’t care,” Cas says, serious and close, “How much and how little we have sex.”

Dean makes a face.

“You do,” Dean says, “Not saying you care about it enough for it to change anything between us, but you do _care_. I… I know you’re probably the most respectful person I’ve ever met in my damn life, but you’re not a freaking monk.”

“No,” Cas concedes, “But I’d consider that to be worth it if that’s what you wanted, but it isn’t, so we will work it out, Dean. At a sensible pace.”

“Right,” Dean exhales, lying back down again and pulling Cas with him, “Cause nothing screams sexy like a sensible pace.”

“I love you very much.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, shutting his eyes and trying, desperately, for that to be the part of all of this that he focuses on. The fact that loves him very much.. “You too, darlin’.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t always understand,” Cas says, soft and low, and Dean could pretty much listen to Cas talk forever. They don't always get this stuff right, but that's because they're making it up on the spot. He's got _no idea_ how you conduct a functional relationship after a straight up fucking abusive one, and... they do okay. “And that you have to deal with any of this in the first place.”

Yeah, Dean’s pretty sorry about all of that too. 

“Fair warning,” Dean mutters into the dark,because if he's going to be honest then he might as well be honest about all of it. “We’ve talked about this enough tonight that I’m probably gonna have a nightmare tonight so, just, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. It happens.”

“Can I help?”

“Just,” Dean breathes, blinking at the walls of the room, “Hold me.”

(In the end, they stay up debating whether they’ve ever slept in this room before, and Dean lies with his head on Cas’ chest and feels the vibration of Cas’ deep, gravel as he speaks into the night. He falls asleep between one Beach House story and another and he doesn’t have a nightmare. )


	2. Day 2, 3 & 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention the 'it getting heavy' thing? Cause, ya know. fair warning and all that.

Castiel brings him coffee in bed. Dean’s not really sure how he managed to slip out of bed without him noticing (last Dean knew, he was using Cas as a security blanket / pillow, and the airbed basically upturns every time either of them moves and unbalances it), but the first thing Dean is aware of is Cas opening the door to their room with his hip with two coffees in hand.

“Morning,” Dean mutters, sitting up. The only real way to do it is to sit with his back against the wall behind the air bed, but that basically works even if it’s not all that comfortable. 

“Hello, Dean.”

“Thought you were protesting against the coffee machine,” Dean says, stretching out his back before accepting the mug of coffee. Cas has picked out the revamped Castiel mug, and Dean runs his thumb over the writing on the inside of the handle; _Castiel, age 7._ He feels…. a lot better than he did yesterday, actually. Almost well rested.

“It is more practical,” Cas says, stepping over him to slip back under the covers next to him. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Dean says, “Genuinely okay, not bullshit okay.”

“Good,” Cas frowns, “Did you sleep okay?”

“Quit mother henning me,” Dean says, “You’re the one that looks like you slept like shit.”

“You are charming.”

“Cas,”

“No, I didn’t sleep,” Cas concedes, “I was —- concerned about you.”

“Don’t be.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, “Be reasonable.”

Dean can’t even bring himself to come up with an argument against that. If the roles were reversed, Dean’s pretty damn sure that he wouldn’t be able to deal with anywhere near as much grace and level headedness. It’s pretty likely if Cas mentioned that his douchebag ex-husband so much as raised his voice at Cas, Dean would hunt him down and rip his goddamn head off. 

That’s not the point, though.

“Look, it’s your grief party we’re attending, here. We should be talking about how you’re doing, not me.”

“I don’t care.” 

“Cas,”

“No, I mean about this event. About tomorrow. I don’t care, Dean. It’s not of import. It’s a date. It doesn’t matter,” Cas says, blowing at his coffee to cool it. “I loved my father and found him frustrating in equal measures, and I am sad that he is dead, but — I am done with allowing that to distract me from things that are actually happening in my life.”

“Like my freaking breakdown,” Dean grumbles.

“Dean, the problem I have had with my family for my entire life, is that I care too much. I care too much about what they think and what they want and what they expect and how they feel about my decisions.”

That pretty much lines up with Dean’s experience of all of it. Cas went to Stanford in an attempt to piss off his father and he studied law to meet his family’s expectations. He got freaking married to fund a lawsuit to stick it to Michael and Lucifer and he quit his job in honour of his father’s wishes. He has spent an achingly long time trying to _get something_ from people whose opinions are worth so, so much less than Castiel’s time. He’s always been better than all of it, he just never really believed it. 

That’s not to say that Dean isn’t pretty sure that this latest nonchalance as all tied up in the temporary drama, rather than a new state of being. 

“Not gonna argue with that.” 

“ _I don’t care_ ,” Cas says, “Compared to this, it is insignificant. It is _irrelevant_.” 

“It’s irrelevant, huh?”

“You underestimate was a kismet event you are in my life, Dean Winchester,” Cas says, half quirking an eyebrow at him, voice soft. “I have spent a lifetime trying to fit in and stand out and obey and please, and then _you_ have a catastrophic ability to see through all of it, and like it.”

“You sell yourself short, Cas.”

“Perhaps,” Cas says, “Or perhaps you’ve overinflated my worth.”

“Yeah, cause that’s the way round this goes.”

“The point is,” Cas says, “I kissed you in the sea eight months ago and, for once, I was not thinking about what my siblings or my father or Naomi would think about it, because your opinion about it was the only thing that mattered.”

Dean takes a sip of his coffee and feels a little warm all over.

“You're my person,” Cas says, “And it was a privilege for you to be my person as my best friend, and it is more than I could ever have wished for to get this too.”

_It is cathartic and incredible not to regulate my behavior around you anymore, and I am awestruck._

Cas loves him. Not like a bit, either. Cas loves him enough to tiptoe around all of Dean’s issues and triggers; to deal with the fact that Dean’s kind of a slob and kind of annaly retentaive about different things with no real justification behind it; to tolerate that Dean has co-dependent complicated relationship with his brother. Cas loves him enough to move into his pokey little apartment even though the guy’s a way too fucking good for him. He’s awesome and crazy-smart and powerful, and a fucking millionaire, and he’s slumming it in _Dean’s appartment_ like there’s no where else he’d rather be.

(They finally had the money conversation right before Cas moved in, because Cas has sort of spent the last eight months being a professional volunteer. Dean kind of doesn’t give a shit _what_ Cas does with his life, and there’s something kind of adorable about Cas committing to the freaking soup kitchen and the homeless youth services and the church group litter pick and basically every single group of people in a fifty mile radius who asked for some help, but Dean’s more or less practical, and it felt like they should talk about it before any of that moving in stuff. Dean asked him exactly how long Cas has the means of _not_ picking up a paycheck, and Cas told him he had ‘approximately’ two and a half fucking million dollars in his bank acount. Dean asked how much money he had _before_ he funded those bullshit lawsuits and his divorce, and Cas said it would probably be better if he didn’t say, and Dean just accepted it, bucked up and dealt with the fact that Cas inherited more money than Dean’s ever going to earn in his life. Cas pays half the rent check and they take it turns to pay for take out, so it probably doesn’t actually freaking matter, even if the thought of it plagued him through most of his young adult life). 

“Put down your damn coffee and kiss me,” Dean says, and Cas obliges. He’s a little less cautious about it than he was last night, which is awesome, and Dean gets to roll into his space and pull him close, and continue getting his fill of Cas all close and solid and warm and safe, and everything else feels really far away.

That whole conversation was probably worth it if it meant that now Cas wasn’t so scared of Dean having a panic attack that he wouldn’t touch him, because over the past eight months Dean’s become pretty dependent on this. He tries really damn hard to avoid being dependent on crap, but there are some exceptions. Sam, for one, but Cas was always going to fall into that category too. Cas, sleep ruffled, with his adorable little bed head, tasting like coffee, kissing Dean in his pyjamas in the second smallest bedroom of the Beach House can have its own space on the list. 

It’s a little too easy to get carried away. 

A door slamming next door snaps them out of it, a little after Cas has probably-accidentally gotten way closer to Dean’s junk that he did the time of the infamous second panic attack. It's probably more in virtue of the fact of the pyjamas and the fact that the air bed is small than any actual intentions, because Cas suddenly looks pretty guilty about it, and his left hand very much relocates from thigh to waist. Mostly, Dean wants to flip them over and grind their hips together, but he’s pretty sure Cas won’t have any of it.

“Be practical,” Cas says, voice low and gravelly and hot. Dean’s already working on a different kind of practical, because actually he’s pretty sure that the Beach House would be up there on the list of places that would be okay for them to sleep together in. They already have, for a start, and the little bedrooms with their bunk beds and crappy old furniture have that childhood familiarity, but mostly it’s the beach house smell: sea salt and sunblock, even in winter. It’s home in the same way that the impala is home. “Zachariah is next door.”

Dean’s always hated Zach.

“Don’t act like that’s your reason.”

“Dean, if you do have a flashback, I am sure there are places that you’d rather deal with it than in a house full of all of my siblings, where we are sharing a bathroom with three other adult men,” Cas says, smoothing his hands over his shoulders. 

“You said you wouldn’t baby me.”

“There’s a difference between _that_ and allowing you to make stubborn, obstinate decisions when the consequences aren’t worth it.”

“Speak for yourself with the ain’t worth it shit.”

“You know I’m right, Dean,” Cas says, which is true. Cas is abso-fucking-lutely right, but that doesn’t mean Dean’s going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. “I’m not advocating being sensible all of the time, but …. right now.”

“Yeah yeah,” Dean says with an eye roll, sitting up and reclaiming his coffee. “I uh,” Dean says, smiling at him a bit. “I love you. Dunno if I said that last night.”

“If you didn’t, it was heavily implied,” Cas says, “And very much understood.” 

Dean smiles into his coffee and it’s a pretty good way to start the morning, all things considered. 

(They have a similar incident that night, after a day of reminiscing, drinking another bottle of Chuck’s favourite whisky and a group watch of that fucking awful cheaper by the dozen movie. They half stumble up to bed and kiss and it gets a little heated, cause they haven’t actually gotten this close for a while. Dean’s the one to hit the breaks and press their foreheads together and half grin, all close and warm, as Cas nudges their noses together and smiles, smiles, smiles). 

*

Friday is the anniversary of Chuck’s death.

Castiel wakes up in a bit of a snit and scowls into the coffee Dean brings him in bed, but he’s doing a lot better with it all than he was when they started this thing.

Sometimes, Dean worries that he’s still a little lost: he spent the first month or two hauled up in his apartment editing Chuck’s fucking novels, convinced that his life’s calling was to get them damn things published, until the passion fizzled out to regret and bitterness and _grief_. Dean spent another night on the sofa watching that bee documentary (a version of it they found on youtube, because the tape is still in the Beach House sitting room) and a couple days after that, Cas stopped talking about the books all together. The volunteering thing felt a little more productive than _that_ , at least, and then some city ordinance code meant the Soup Kitchen that Cas had been chopping vegetables for three times a week was at risk of closure, and somehow Cas ended up as legal counsel. It wasn’t exactly Dean’s dream outcome for Cas to fall back into the lawyer role, but it seemed… good for him.

Dean can swallow his words and deal with whatever-the-fuck-ever if it’s good for Castiel. 

Today, the plan is for all of the Milton contingent (Dean not included) to head to the little church on the hill and visit Chuck’s grave. Technically, he has two gravestones because Michael and Lucifer fell out over where to bury him, and the result was that they tossed a coin and paid for two and no one but the funeral directions knows where he’s actually buried, because the Miltons as a unit are actually ridiculous. 

(Dean’s still not over that semi-hostile takeover of Milton & Milton that happened a little after Gabriel realised that Michael had worked out that the actual ownership of the Beach House _was_ Milton & Milton, and that the managing partner was the only person who could sanction sales, home improvements or cutting extra keys. He somehow persuaded the board to oust Michael so that _Castiel_ could be presented with a job offer to take over and put Hannah in place as interim MP for long enough to change the bylaws, which resulted in Gabriel showing up on some random Tuesday with a ‘formal job offer from the board’ which had Cas blinking at him in something that looked a lot like disbelief. Now, Hannah is still in charge and killing it and any home improvements have to go to democratic vote of Miltons, which is why Castiel gets prissy at least once a week about things like ‘request for approval of a new coffee machine’. Still, Gabriel had heard that Michael was intending to purchase land in the surrounding area and turn it into a hotel resort and spa, so now Gabriel owns three of the neighbouring properties and Dean has been more convinced than ever that his family is pretty freaking simple, in comparison).

The house is quiet after they’ve left. 

Dean walks to the beach and watches the waves for a little while, then returns to the Beach House and searches out all the things that have changed since the last time they were here. He knows about the outer paint job, because it’s the only request for approval that Cas actually voted for. He voted _against_ the coffee machine and replacing the kitchen table, but he didn’t even mention the new sofa and the DVD player hooked up to the TV. 

The place looks pretty good. 

Anna is the driving force behind the revamp, from what he can work out, and she’s tried to reason with Cas that if they let it be the place will decay and rot, and that Chuck wouldn’t want the house to be a crumbling shine to his memory. She’s got a good eye for it. She got copies of all the Milton-painted crockery reprinted and the originals on display in a worn old cabinet that Dean knows has always been that, but couldn’t for the life of him say what it used to contain. The new sofa looks good and the kitchen table looks like it was made for the room. 

Mostly, he’s stayed out of it, but maybe he’ll try and talk Cas round on the next approval request. 

Dean empties the fridge to sort out lunch of burgers and salads and dips, because the last thing anyone needs when they’re grieving is working out what the hell they’re going to eat. He calls Sam while he slices tomatoes and red onion, and has the grill fired up and ready just as they all get back.

When he arrives, Castiel makes a beeline for him and throws his arms around his neck, and Dean holds him for long enough that the burgers start to catch, and somewhere in the background Lucifer makes some crass joke about all the years Cas thought he was straight, and honestly Dean could not give a shit.

*

He spends most of Saturday trying not to stare at Castiel.

If practice was a precursor to success, he should be doing _much_ better at it. Dean spent the better part of his teenage years trying _not_ to stare at Castiel (unsuccessfully, if Sam’s word is anything to go by), but he’s been indulging in it recently. They’re _dating_ so it’s not like it’s generally a freaking problem that Dean can’t take his eyes off him, but it’s only just after lunch and Balthazar is the third person to make a comment about it. 

There’s still two whole days before they go home and suddenly that feels like a really, really long time.

Dean’s an adult, not a goddamn hormone-crazed teenager, and he doesn’t know why the fact that they haven’t slept together for _six weeks_ suddenly feels like an unreasonable time gap, when for most of the past few years that would be shorter than his usual time-gaps between casual hookups. He’s just gotten _used to_ this new normal where sex is a pretty regular, pretty awesome part of his life again, and that might just be part of the reason why this stuff has started niggling at him…. But _honestly_ he’s not all that bothered about dissecting it right now, he just wants ---

\--- he _wants Cas_.

He’s wanted Cas for most of his life, but it’s more of a pressing, gnawing need right now and he can’t concentrate on anything else.

_Alistair does not get to take any of the wonder out of Dean-and-Castiel. He doesn’t. Dean won’t let him._

“Winchester,” Zachariah interjecs, voice callous and definitely taking the piss. At least half of the Milton’s have always thought Dean was a humorous figure rather than anything to take seriously, but then they’ve also thought that about Castiel, so Dean couldn’t really give a shit about their judgement. “What do _you_ think about Cassie’s little hobby?”

“What?” Dean asks, running a thumb over the neck of his beer and trying to focus. Cas’ shoulders are bunched up and frustrated and, mostly, Dean wants to cross over there and smooth out the tension in his muscles with his hands, and he wants to kiss that frown, and take Cas _back the hell home_ To bed, preferable, in a land where Dean doesn’t have panic attacks, and where he can spends hours taking him apart and freaking _lavishing_ him with all the heat and intent and feelings that Dean’s never been that good at putting into words.

“This little legal clinic,”

“Cas seems to like it,” Dean shrugs, glancing over at him.

“They’re _using you_ ,” Zachariah says, “For free legal advice.”

“Not everyone only does something for a paycheck, Zach.”

Zachariah looks Dean up and down, slow and condescending, and his mouth curves into a sneer. “Clearly.” 

Castiel stands up, every inch highly controlled, burning wrath, and looks at him with about as much contempt as Dean’s always wanted to openly show Zachariah, whose a snivelling, callous asshat. 

“You will keep your opinions to yourself,” Castiel says, voice radiating danger, “And you will be polite to my guest.”

Cas is _incredible_. He’s fucking beautiful and kind and he saves Soup Kitchens from closure and awkwardly plays video games with troubled gay homeless youth at the drop in centre every Thursday night and he loves the damned bees, and Dean Winchester, even though Dean is a broken, damaged version of the cocky pre-teen Cas met in middle school. Cas edited his late father’s books and solemnly and sincerely declares that Dean is the love of his life and he is so, _so_ unbelievably hot. 

Dean tips the rest of his beer away, because they’re _definitely_ gonna have sex later, the rest of it be damned.

*

He texts Cas _meet me by the spot_ just after he’d expect him to get back from the beer run with Gabriel, and he uses the rest of the time to look out over the sea and ignore his damn phone. Technically, he’s got a couple of messages from Sam he should reply to, but he’s not in the damn mood. He wants —-

He wants to have a kick ass evening with Cas, on their beach, and he wants to do something with the sexual tension that’s been floating around all over the place ever since they actually broached this conversation. He wants to be okay and he wants them to freaking make love, or some sentimental shit, and he wants Cas to know, in his bones, how much Dean fucking loves him. 

It takes Cas ten or so minutes to appear over the jut of rock and raise an eyebrow in Dean's direction, because… well, he must look like a fucking picture, given he lugged half the picnic blankets out here to set up their little _date spot_.

Technically, Dean knows about this little secluded bit of the beach, just beyond the rocks, because it’s the place Dean disappeared to with that girl the night that Cas came out and they fell out about Dean’s ‘hetronormative insensitive bullcrap’ , but Dean’s not about to open up that can of worms. That was a long time ago and a lot of things have happened since then. 

“Dean, what’s going on?”

“You remember,” Dean says, “Never have I ever.”

“How could I forget?” Cas asks, dessert dry as he sits down next to him and quirks up an eyebrow.

“Well,” Dean says, “Was pretty freaking horrified to learn that Castiel Milton, moon of my stars, all that jazz, has less al fresco experience than my freaking brother.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sex on the beach, Cas.” Dean says, “If it’s good enough for a cocktail, it’s good enough for us.”

“You,” Cas says, mouth creeping up into a smile, “Are ridiculous.”

“Welcome to the rest of your life.”

“I hope so,” Cas says, and, god, that’s good to hear. Cas wants to spend the _rest of their lives_ together. “Is this a good idea?”

“Maybe,” Dean says, “Maybe not.”

“Dean,”

“Look, whatever,” Dean says, “I just — feel like I haven’t had you to myself and you’re....”Dean trails off, gesturing in a way that he hopes encaptures the magnetic _pull_ that Castiel possesses, and the way Dean gets sucked into his gravitational pull every time he scowls at his coffee or he valiantly defends Dean’s honour, or sleepily trips over the edge of the airbed in the way to the room. Every single thing about him _draws him in_ and today, he just…

He really needs to tangle their hands together and feel the smooth weight of Cas’ palm in his own.

“There are a lot of my siblings.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

“I’d rather not.” 

“Yeah,” Dean huffs a laugh, “You okay?”

“Yes,” Cas says, tucking himself under Dean’s arm, solid and secure and freaking perfect. “I am. Thank you for coming.”

“Obviously, Cas.” 

“Not obviously,” Cas says, “I — I appreciate your support.”

“I appreciate your _face_.” Dean throws back. He’s feeling kind of light and good and he’s not really sure why. It might be the Beach House and the nostalgia or that he’s still basking in the aftermath of talking to Cas about what’s going on in his head, but it feels good. He feels _free_ and alive, and it’s good. It’s lighter than he’s felt in weeks.

“You are very witty,” Cas says, twisting round to kiss him. Dean pulls half the blanket over them and tips them horizontal in the sand, tangling their legs together. “And charming.”

“Uh uh.”

“And — optimistic about your chances of getting lucky.”

“Cas,” Dean says, “I bought blankets.” 

Cas smirks and kisses him, and kisses him, and keeps kissing him, and at some point they end up off the edge of the blanket. 

“The damned sand,” Cas hisses, and his petulance sparks a ripple of affection in Dean’s gut, and he’s kind of laughing as they kiss. Dean half sits up to pull off his shirt and Cas kind of rolls his eyes and kind of smiles, and then he kisses him into the sand again. 

“Freaking dork,” Dean mutters.

“I love you.”

“You smooth talker,” Dean says, “You’re just trying to get in my pants.”

“If the general populace knew what was in your pants, they’d want to too.”

“They might, if they walk on this beach in about ten minutes time.” Cas looks a little wary about that. “Cas. It’s March. No one’s coming down here.” 

“Have you taken a survey of the general populace?”

“No,” Dean says, “Can get on that right now, if you want.” 

“You are incorrigible.”

“You love me.”

“Yes,”

“Okay then,” Dean says, and kisses him with all the simmering heat that’s been distracting him _all freaking day_.

It’s ridiculous that he can know the intricacies of this man so well and still long to know _so much more_.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, “Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, “Really sure.”

And Cas tracks along his jawline with his thumb, reverent and sincere, and it’s serious and intent, and it’s probably designed to give Dean some time to back out, and Cas some time to think it through and get to his own conclusions. He must be satisfied by whatever he’s looking for, though, because then Cas kissies again. 

And --- it's good. Cas is fucking beautiful and hot as hell and Dean's always wanted to peel bask the layers of his composure, really. He’s not as in the moment as Dean would probably like, and he hates the idea of Cas being careful with him, but he’s also reasonable enough to get that that’s necessary right now. 

_That time,_ Cas hadn’t been careful and it was awesome, until it wasn’t. It was goddamn electric; heart racing, _hot,_ with his unfathomable strong thighs pinning him to the bed - their bed - and Cas was silent but for his breathing, and there’s no real reason why that should have been so goddamn sexy, and then something in his head started unraveling, and there was a spark of instinctive fear. Fear and shame are so intertwined in his head that sometimes he can’t tell them apart, and then there was both, and he was still so _fucking turned on_ and it was Castiel, and he didn’t want to be robbed of another damn thing. He should have breathed a ‘Cas, stop’ because, obviously, Cas would have looked alarmed and then guilty like a kicked puppy, but he wouldn’t have questioned it. He’d have made Dean one of his awful cups of tea and watched Doctor Sexy until he could talk about what the hell happened. Dean _should have stopped it._

Castiel’s lips pressed into the pulse point on his neck was still sinfully hot, though, with a scrap of teeth and stubble, and —- the whole _point of it_ was to let go. To fucking enjoy the fact that Cas is bad ass and strong and knows what the hell he wants, these days, and if his kid self knew that he had Cas all instinct-driven and inhibited and _stopped it_ before the good stuff, he’d have been horrified. 

But — there was this point when he was on the road with Alistair, when they were hauled up in some motel and Dean didn’t know what state they were in anymore, and Alistair had some kind of bad day which was usually bad for Dean. After, he’d spent an hour throwing up in the bathroom with one of his t-shirts wrapped around his leg to stop the bleeding, and Alistair had stormed back in the room, thundering with white hot rage and looked at him like he was going to peel his skin off, slowly, and his voice sent that thrill of fear down his spine, and he told him to _stand up, brush your teeth, come here._ Alistair slammed him onto the bed with a hand to either shoulder and _then_ Dean caught up with what was happening, because he’d been so far removed from feeling like _that,_ but — his survival instinct stopped offering fight or flight as valid options a long time ago, and had firmly left him with ‘submit’, and he used to _like_ treading the line of pleasure- pain, but not like this, not like this, and; fear clogging up his lungs, Alistair pinning him down with his thighs, his body betraying him by reacting to the hand tracking down the curve of his ass, still goddamn bleeding from before, and the shame and the fear all crystallized into a single point of clarity. _I’m not going to make it out of this alive. I’m going to die here and no one will know where I am._

(He’d forgotten about it; buried it; blocked it the hell out.)

He’d kept all of it at bay until the split second after, when Cas slumped, boneless and heavy on Dean’s chest, breathing. And then he was gone. His composure and his carefully constructed walls shattered, and he was _right there_

And then there is _right now._

On the beach with Castiel, on a day where Dean couldn’t stop staring at him. 

“Dean,” Cas says, voice hitched with desire and reverence and concern, pausing with a thumb dipping under the waistband of his boxers on the beach, with the blankets twisted all around them. His voice is grounding, but that just reminds him that _he lost his footing_.“Are you okay?”

Obviously, he isn’t. He’s not okay. He’s _not okay._

“I,” Dean begins, and God he hates this, “Need you to kiss me.”

Cas does, and that’s better. He can hear the soft sound of the sea and Cas smells like Dean’s laundry detergent and expensive whisky, and he’s perfect. 

“Tell me how I can help,” Cas says, low and rough enough that it’s still kind of sexy, which is good and confusing in almost equal measure. 

“Don’t,” Dean begins, taking a lungful of sea salt air to level himself, “Don’t touch my scars.”

That stills him for a moment, probably trying to work out what that leaves him to work with. It would probably be a difficult task to navigate, anyway, but Cas loves to touch: his hips, chest, skimming the tips of his fingers over his stomach. 

(It’s not like Alistair ever did that, so _why can’t his sense memory just treat them as separate things_? They’re not comparable. They’re not in the same sphere of existence. Why does he still have to detangle this bullcrap?)

“Better idea,” Dean says, flipping them over with his thighs, until Cas is pinned beneath him, half off the blanket and in the sand. Dean sits up and offers him a faux-cocky smile. “There you go. That should make it easier.”

“Dean,” Cas says, a little wary. 

“I’m,” Dean says, sucking in another breath, “It’’s okay. I just — I just wanna _be_ with you. I want — I _want you._ ”

“Okay,” Cas says, but he’s slow and considered as he kisses him again. It still has that simmering heat (there’s _always_ heat when they kiss, because their whole thing is pretty electrically charged; it’s all that frustration and love and freaking passion), but Cas has definitely dialed it down. That’s good. It means he has time to breath and keep himself in the moment, and — it’s okay. Good, actually. It’s toe curlingly awesome (Cas knows every goddamn inch of him, and he knows _exactly_ where to fucking touch him, and when, and how, and _god Cas is incredible_ ), but he can also feel that familiar tendrils of fear creeping at his heals, so he needs to keep a firm grasp on _reality_.

_Cas loves him and they’re on the beach and it’s Cas touching him, Cas pressing his lips to his earlobe, Cas’ freaking fingers; Cas, Cas, Cas._

(I carved you into a new animal, Dean. There is no going back). 

But he’s _safe_ and this is good and awesome and exactly what he’s always wanted.

_(You can’t run, Dean. Not from me. I’m inside that angsty little noggin of yours)_

Castiel; smiling at him with his bloodied, twelve year old knees; at thirty two, bringing him coffee in bed; gravel rough voice _I love you/_ Castiel, underneath Dean on the beach.

_\-- stand up, brush your teeth, come here -_

(Castiel crinkled eyed and worried, hand on his cheek, and there’s sand in his hair)

_-Not going to make it out of this alive and --_

(“Dean,” Castiel says, commanding, “Dean.”) 

\-- I’m going to die here and no one will know where I am -

_(“ -- Dean,” Castiel says, and he’s… he’s scared, and Dean’s not sure he’s ever really seen him scared and it seems so wrong, to see strong, steady Castiel look like he’s just --)_

“Shit,” Dean says and, _fuck, fuck, fuck_ , and Cas drops the hand from Dean’s shoulder like he’s been electrocuted and Dean needs, _needs_ to get a hold of his _goddam head_ because he’s --

_He’s not supposed to be this broken anymore._

He needs something to ground himself so he stands up, shaking, and heads into the sea.

The water is fucking freezing. The shock of it centers himself. The cold strips away that familiar, complicated feeling of being turned on and ashamed and scared all at the same time, till all there’s left is Dean residing in his own body , feeling the combative warmth blossom in his limbs as his body tries to fight the temperature change, and then there’s numbness, and then that shock of adrenaline that makes him feel alive. All the air rushes out of his lungs, and then… _he’s back_. He’s okay. 

_None of this is happening right now_. 

He’s on the beach with Cas, who… who’s following him into the water, mouth pulled into a frown, and he’s gorgeous and unearthly and — god, what would Dean do without him? He doesn’t know how he did it for years. Doesn’t really know why he let anyone else close, because he's never met anyone who treated him with as much respect and reverence as Castiel. 

“Damnit, Dean,” Cas says, fumbling to find his footing on the sea bed and fixing him with that look. “It’s _March_.”

“You didn’t have to follow me,” Dean says, and his voice sounds a little cracked, but otherwise okay.

“What if you’d gone into shock, you _assbut_?” Cas demands, and Dean kisses him because he's not sure what else he can do, and Cas wraps his arms around and kisses him back. The water is lapping up to their shoulders, but Cas kisses him in the moonlight like it's summer and they’re carefree and everything's okay.


	3. Night 4

There was moment the week before Christmas, when Sam and Castiel were sort of having an argument about some legal battle that might have been in the paper or might have been one of Sam’s, but one of those arguments where they both actually agreed with each other for the most part yet still managed to frame it like they didn’t. Dean had lost the thread of the conversation because they were also sort of watching Star Wars (the fact that two of the most important people in his life are the types that think it’s okay to talk through Star Wars is a different problem all together) and because it was nearly Christmas, and Cas was squeezed into Bobby’s couch next to him, and Dean was pretty happy just to let them rabbit on about whatever while he focused on Han Solo.

He’s pretty sure that the gist of it was that this girl was sueing her boss for wrongful dismissal and sexual harassment, and they were arguing about whether she could push for anything more than that and the merits of the case. Sam thought it was worth her trying to push criminal charges and Cas said that he probably was a criminal, but that the charges wouldn’t stick. 

And Sam said _you can’t consent if you don’t have the option of saying no_ and then something about the idyllic December-Saturday shattered, and his stomach was free falling, and everyone else was still fucking talking like nothing actually happened. 

(Sam is brilliant and sensitive and probably too understanding about Dean’s issues most of the damn time, this was just one of those things that it probably didn’t even occur to him could scramble his head. Dean doesn’t exactly _blame_ him for that, because he’d much rather Sam quit tiptoeing around him sometimes.)

_Yes,_ Cas said, compelling and impatient, _I agree with you, but there’s no precedent._

You can’t consent if you don’t have the option of saying no. 

And, okay, Dean’s spent a lot of time digesting the stuff that happened to him, and finding words that he was happy to use to label his experiences, but they generally stuck to the fact that Alistair was manipulative and physically abusive. Alistair hit him, and they just happened to be sleeping together. He knew that was freaking unhealthy, but there’s a difference between that and —

_You can’t consent if you don’t have the option of saying no._

Dean left the room to take a time out in Bobby’s kitchen and get himself a drink, and Bobby followed him out because he’s always seen straight through him. He raised an eyebrow at him across the kitchen and said ‘you okay, kid?’ and Dean nodded because he really didn’t want to get into it, and what the hell could he say about it? 

He _didn’t_ say no. Later, he was always kind of angry at himself for that, because it meant that in a lot of ways he signed his own death warrant. He didn’t object and he didn’t try and get out, so who the hell else was there to blame for what happened to him? 

But, there’s that part of the experience that he’s never quite managed to capture before. He’s talked near it and adjacent to it, but he’s never had the words to dissect that feeling. He knew that the sex in itself was a problem, because otherwise he wouldn’t have such an issue with it now, and he knew that eclectic mix of being turned on and ashamed fucking terrified was the problem, and that it’s almost a sense memory. Associations. He has the panic attacks because that’s what his body did whenever they slept together towards the end: shut the hell down. And he doesn’t blame himself for any of that happening to him, exactly , but —- 

_He didn’t have the option._ He… some of the time, he didn’t have a damn option. There was this implicit threat of violence and the fact that, at that point, Dean didn’t have a phone or access to any money and… what would Alistair have done, if Dean had said no? What would have happened if he’d actually had the guts to shake his head and spit out the words? Remove his hand, apologise and come back later? No fucking way.

_—- Stand up, brush your teeth, come here. Alistair’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him down, down. I’m in that angsty little noggin of yours. I’m not going to make it out of this alive. I’m going to die here and no one will know where I am —-_

You can’t consent if you don’t have the option to say no. 

Dean walked back into the room and told Sam to shut the hell up monopolising Dean’s boyfriend to talk about work during Star Wars, particularly when Cas quit, anyway, and that sounded believable enough that none of them really dug any deeper.

_Sam, she is happy with the charges that are likely to be successful. Anything else would jeopardize—_

_— you can’t consent if you don’t have the option of saying no -_

_Yes, I agree with you, but there’s no precedent —_

_— if she lost the job, she’d be facing bankruptcy. He knew that and he used that to exert pressure on her ---_

_Do I sound like I am in support of anything this man has done?_

_It’s rape, Cas, and he’s getting away with it._

*

(The walk back up to the house is freezing and, after Dean takes a scalding hot shower and spends twenty minutes talking himself down for the edge of a panic attack, and another ten trying to convince himself that they’re going to work this out. His legs feel like jelly and he’s got a splitting headache, and he wants to be at home, with Cas, watching Dr Sexy on their sofa, and that’s not an option.) 

*

Castiel is waiting for him in the second smallest bedroom. 

He’s in bed, tucked under the covers. There’s a mug of what looks like coffee next to Dean’s side of the bed, and he’s pulled on one of Dean’s old T-shirts’ to sleep in even though he usually just sleeps shirtless, which all points to Cas actually wanting to have a conversation about what just happened.

Dean crosses to the room and curls into Cas’ side of the bed, half sprawled across him. Cas kisses his forehead and settles with a hand resting on his lower back, gentle and soft.

“I probably shouldn’t have yelled at you for running into the sea,” Cas says.

Dean kind of smiles at that. 

“Dunno, Cas. Pretty overdramatic way to take a cold freaking shower.” 

“And nevertheless, effective.”

Dean snorts and breathes in the familiar Cas scent. 

“It stopped the panic attack,” Cas says, his voice about as unimposing as Cas can makes his voice, given the guy kind of talks like he gargles broken glass or smokes fifty a day, and has all that power and authority built into his being (even if he doesn’t exactly have a good track record of using it). 

“It’s,” Dean says, “It’s the flashback it stops, which I guess amounts to the same thing. It’s. Uh, jerking my body back into the fucking present, but there’s a lot of ways that are better than _that_. Not saying dump a bucket of water over my head next time that happens, because I’d probably punch you as a reflex but… most physical sensations work, except the obvious. So — do with that what you will.”

“I want to help you.” 

“I want you not to _have_ to help me,” Dean says, “But, it looks like we’re not there right now, so there’s that.” 

“We’ll work it out,” Cas says, and Dean sits up to source some painkillers from his duffle bag to do something about his head. He dry swallows them before claiming his coffee and taking a sip. It’s a little cold now, but it's still good: rich and bitter and grounding.

“It’s decaf americano,” Cas says, “Gabriel taught me how to use the machine properly.” 

“Decaf,” Dean repeats, “What’s the damn point?”

“Because when I make you tea you accuse me of babying you, but I think it’s very important that you sleep tonight.”

“What, uh, what did you say to your brothers?” Dean asks, taking another sip and shutting his eyes. Dean pretty much ignored all of them on the way back through the house to get himself in the shower and find somewhere to sit and breathe for as long as possible and left Cas to run interference. Must have looked pretty freaking ridiculous, half-soaked from the sea, skin stuck to their clothes because they didn’t really bring anything to dry themselves, and Dean just wanted to be away from the damn beach by the time they’d gotten out of the sea and didn’t stop to hear Cas’ blankets as towels suggestion. Cas was carrying most of the blankets and looking tired and unhappy and Dean almost definitely looked like shit. 

“That we went swimming and then you started to feel ill,” Cas says, “I think they believe we had an argument.”

“All right,” Dean exhales, because that could be worse. He can cope with the collective group of Miltons thinking his erratic behavior can be chalked up to a little domestic. “You cold?” Dean asks, frowning as Cas draws the covers back around him and sinks further into the air bed, like he’s seeking out warmth. Cas answers by looking a little dear-in-headlines and a little sheepish. “Dumbass,” Dean says with an eye roll, “Get over here.”

Cas curls into his side like Dean’s the one holding him together, which is basically ridiculous. They lie that for a while, just breathing.

“Dean,” Cas says, “What are we going to do?”

Dean shuts his eyes.

“Well, for the foreseeable future, it looks a lot like I’m teetotal and celibate, which is just fucking peachy,” Dean says, “Cas, I’m —”

“If you’re going to apologise, I don’t want you to.” 

“Okay,” Dean says, “No apologising. But, uh, I’m a lot right now. I know that. So if you…”

“Dean,” Cas says, “There is nothing that you could be experiencing or going through that would make me any less in love with you and any less committed to you. You know that. This is lip service, and I’d rather we skip it.”

He does know that, but it’s still a little difficult to swallow. Cas is the best person Dean’s ever known and he deserves simple, uncomplicated happiness, not this bittersweet, twisted version of a happy ending, where all the good things kind of hurt and their demons creep at their heels whenever they think they just get to be happy. 

And… Dean accepted a long time ago that he’s never gonna be the same as he was, but not all of that is a bad thing. He’s a lot more honest with himself about how he feels and he’s ditched that uneasy feeling that everyone he ever cared about was just trying to get away from him, because he has iron clad proof that they would go above and beyond to rebuild him from the ground up. That old, pre-Alistair version of him wasn’t happy. He was insecure and goddamn stupid, with misplaced pride and misplaced angst and a helluva chip on his shoulder. He was _easy prey_ because he was desperate to give himself a real reason to explain why he hated himself so much, with a shitty attitude towards all things reckless and dangerous. He believed that Cas could never love him, and he believed that John Winchester’s word was worth more than Bobby Singer’s and he believed that Sam would disappear into his new life and would abandon Dean to the dust. He’d take _this_ over that, he just wishes there were other ways that he could learn all of these lessons, that didn’t rob him of so much joy in the right now.

And then there’s Castiel. Dean would probably take the cautious, slightly sad version of Cas over the righteous, wrathful Cas who convinced himself that marrying someone to screw over his brothers was worth the people he’d hurt. He likes this Cas that wrestles with working out if he owes his brothers anything and if he cares what they think, rather than the Cas that had tunnel version to the point where he’d cut the siblings that really had his best interests at heart out rather than listen to them. Dean’s loved every version of Cas he’s ever met, but he likes the Cas who's unemployed and a little lost, who lives in Dean’s apartment and makes him decaf coffee after he’s has a panic attack best. 

“I think I need help,” Dean breathes, the solid weight of Castiel under his arm. The words hurt on the way out of his throat, but then they’re out and somehow that’s okay. “Not… not just therapy.”

“What kind of help?”

“There’s this… survivor support group, but I don’t know.”

“What aren’t you sure about?”

“It’s,” Dean says, “There’s a couple. I’ve looked at it before, but most of the local ones are —- for women, actually, but there’s one for male domestic abuse and rape survivors. And. That’s — I don’t know, Cas.”

“You don’t think that’s the right way to describe what happened to you?”

“Domestic abuse,” Dean says, “Sounds a little. Uh — _domestic._ We were never exactly domestic. That sounds like we had a freaking grocery list and argued about paying rent. And, the other thing, uh.”

Cas is very still in his arms.

Dean shuts his eyes.

“We were still sleeping together when it was… really bad. And, uh,” Dean says, and Cas smooths a hand over Dean’s shoulder blade. The warm heat of it helps, some. It’s grounding. “I, uh,” Dean begins, something heavy and painful rising up from his gut. When he gets this close to talking about, he can taste the fear and the shame and the _hurt_ , and it all comes rushing back. Cas is in his arms, though, and Dean’s choosing to have this conversation. “I didn’t -- I never _said no_ , but I…” 

“It’s okay,” Castiel says, “Dean. I’m here.”

“It…. it didn’t,” He begins, and then he stops to breathe, and re-centre himself. _He can talk about this_. He can talk about this. “It was... really bad, Cas.” 

Cas is waiting for him to talk and Dean is counting his breaths until he can speak through the film of bought-to-the-surface-memories and discomfort. In, out, in, out. 

“Got to this point where I was pretty sure that if I tried to get out, or if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted, that — that he was gonna kill me.” 

He’s never said that out loud. 

“I was so fucking scared,” Dean exhales, “All the time. And I—-” Dean says, and oh god, now he’s crying. He’s actually fucking crying, and it’s bullshit. He has everything that he’s ever wanted: he has Castiel — they fucking live together, and it’s amazing — and Sam is more or less happy and he’s out and he has Bobby and he’s probably gonna take over running the salvage yard someday, and he’s crying in one of the smallest rooms at the beach house on a fucking airbed. 

“And at least when we were fucking he wasn’t cutting me up. And he’d look at me, and sometimes I would know what he was gonna do: hurt me, or …. And —-“ And now his tears are turning into actual fucking sobs, and Castiel is twisting to cup his jaw and brush away some of his tears with his thumb, “And the worse he got, the more intent he’d be on getting me off, and — I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it. Any of it. Couldn’t stop reacting.”

“Dean,” Cas says, gently, voice rough with affection.

“Used to pretend I was somewhere else,” Dean says, scraping over the words. “Here. Lost count of the number of times I pretended we were sat on the beach, me you and Sammy, but then —I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t do it, Cas, I thought. I thought I was gonna die and none of you would know where I was, and then thinking about you made it worse, so I — I pretended I _was_ dead. That’s what I wanted. And he’d be — he’d be putting cigarettes out on my skin, or fucking me up with his fists or a knife, or he’d be fucking me, and I’d tell myself that some day I’d be dead, and none of this would be happening anymore, and —”

He doesn’t have any more words. He’s peeled and scrapped all of them out from the dark, buried places inside his chest into the open, and there’s nothing left there anymore. There’s nothing he could say that encapsulating all of the grizzly horror over those last six months; drinking to blur out and blot out the pain and the panic and the desperation; resigning himself to it; eyes slammed shut, trying to think of teaching Sammy how to ride a bike, while Alistair cut the word _worthless_ into his skin with a sneer. _Did you really think this was gonna fix you? Give you closure? That is sad. That’s really sad. Sad, sad, sad._ Motel sheets with the texture of sandpaper and Alistair’s elbow is pressing into the back of his neck. White knuckle grip on a bottle of cheap scotch, back against the bath in a motel, breathing; in, out, in out; _one day I’ll be dead, one day I’ll be dead, one day I’ll be dead, and then none of this can happen anymore._

Waking up in a hospital bed and seeing Sam sat by the bed.

He had this comically long hair and it looked like he had been crying and when he saw Dean was awake he let out this bitter, dry sob and crossed the room and honest-to-god and held his fucking hand and just said his name over and over like he was the one wounded, and Dean didn’t really believe that any of it was happening until Sam said _you’re safe, Dean, they’ve arrested him and you’re safe. You’re safe._

(Later, he found out that Alistair kept his phone and sent Sam messages every couple of weeks, but that Sam was about a month away from calling the cops and filing a missing persons, anyway).

_You’re safe_

Cas pulls him closer and let’s him cry it out until he’s run out of tears.

After, he feels calm. It descends on him, slowly, like he’s burnt through all the other emotions and just left him with nothing except the sensation of Castiel still holding onto him.

“I think the support group sounds like a good idea,” Cas says, after a while. Dean wouldn’t be able to tell you how much time has passed, but he’s _exhausted_ and is pretty sure that he could just sleep right now, but there’s still a lot of things to talk through.

Dean sits up to look at him.

“So,” Dean says, “Is that. Is that what happened to me?”

“Dean,” Cas says, calm, but forcefully so. Like he’s wearing it rather than feeling it. “I’m not going to name parts of your experiences for you.”

“No, I mean. Legally. Is that something Sam could’ve stuck to him.”

“That depends,” Cas says, expression drawn, “It’s, coercion. So you’d have to prove the threat was real and ideally explicit, but — Dean, I want to be your boyfriend, not your lawyer. Unless you want a lawyer, which would be unnecessary, because I have checked on Alistair since and subsequent charges mean that — you wouldn’t need to, for your safety, and if you want to as a matter of principle then — I couldn’t. I can’t.” 

“No,” Dean says, “That’s not… no.”

Cas exhales.

“It doesn’t matter what a court of law would or wouldn’t say. It matters what is helpful for you to … process what happened to you,” Cas says.

“You think he did,” Dean says, feeling out the words, “Rape me.” 

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” 

“Cas,” Dean says, “Don’t doublespeak me.”

“I’m not,” Cas says, “It does not matter how I would categorise your experience, because I wasn’t there and I won’t ever really understand. It matters what _you think_ , and I will follow your lead.”

“I can see right through you, you know.”

Cas sighs.

“Dean, I’ve always been… partisan about sex and consent so my view would be impartial. I don’t really believe that prostitution can be consensual, unless there is no economic pressure on the person and… I don’t think the way we think about it is particularly helpful, with _no means no_ , when that’s not how humans manage behavior the rest of the time. I think that a reasonable assumption that person would not want to have sex, such as if someone is asleep, or you have just cut hateful words into their skin, is more than sufficient as a no, even if no conversation about it is actually had,” Cas says, “And to me it’s quite clear that those experiences were… traumatic, and that is certainly not the result of a _healthy experience._ ” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, rolling the words around his head. ‘Not the result of a healthy experience’ is probably the biggest understatement of the century, but he appreciates Cas’ commitment to trying to do this right. He’s definitely being _careful_ about all of this. “You. How long have you thought about this?”

“You told me sex was a trigger,” Cas says, brow furrowed. “So, I assumed…”

It hadn’t really ocured to him how much Castiel must have joined the dots and worked it all out, but Castiel isn’t exactly dumb. 

“Do you, uh. Do you think Sam thinks ---?”

“Dean,” Cas says, “Does it matter? I care about what _you_ think.”

“Wait,” Dean says, brain sticking on some of Cas’ previous words. _Unless you want a lawyer, which would be unnecessary, because I have checked on Alistair since and subsequent charges mean that — you wouldn’t need to, for your safety, and if you want to as a matter of principle then — I couldn’t. I can’t._ “What do you mean...subsequent charges?”

Castiel looks struck and uneasy.

“Cas,” Dean says, “I’m not some fragile thing you need to protect. If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna look it up myself. I’m already pissed at you for looking it up —”

“Dean, I had to know that you were _safe._ ” Cas says, looking at his hands. Obviously, Dean would have done exactly the same thing, but that’s not the point. It’s not the _point_ when it’s Dean’s life that people are making decisions about.

“Just fucking tell me.” 

“I — I don’t think…” Dean silences him with a look and Castiel’s resolve crumples. “You know that Sam pressed for the DA to look into his finances after what you told him….”

“No,” Dean says. “I, uh, checked out of that the second I’d done my thing.” 

“That is — understandable.” 

“So Sam knows about this other stuff?”

“He wasn’t directly involved,” Cas says, “This happened — years after, but I imagine that your brother knows about it, yes.” 

_Goddamnit Sammy_.

“Cas.”

“Sam suggested they look into illegal money lending, which led to them discovering that he had been fencing stolen goods and — they ceased his assets after and,” Castiel says, gaze intent and steady. “He has two stacked life without parole sentences for first degree murder.” 

And — Dean’s going to be sick. _He’s going to be sick._

“They,” Cas says, brow furrowed, “They found bodies of two men in their early twenties under his patio and there was enough forensic evidence to —” 

“Cas, shut up,” Dean spits out, and the nausea is rising up in his gut with some complicated dread and shame and fear and, fuck, he thought he’d used up all the damn feelings he could have about this for one night, but —

He makes it to the bathroom just in time to throw up. 

Cas follows him, looking drawn out and unhappy, but it’s not his goddamn fault. Dean shouldn’t have pushed. Cas doesn’t generally treat him with kid gloves and lets Dean dictate the pace of how they deal with this. If he didn’t say anything, he should’ve known there was a good fucking reason for it. _Murder._ Jesus.

“Dean, I’m —”

“Water,” Dean says, sinking down to sit on the bathroom floor next to the toilet before his legs can give out. “Please.”

It’s good, really. Life without parole. That’s _a good thing,_ it’s just —

_Oh, God._

“I shouldn’t’ve told you,” Cas says, after he’s fetched a glass of water, bought it back up the stairs and sat on the edge of the bath looking goddamn devastated. “Dean.”

“It’s,” Dean says, his voice sounds raw, “How long have you known about this?”

“Months,” Cas says. “Dean, I’m — I’m sorry. I,” His voice falters, “I didn’t expect, to —”

“You talk to anyone about it?”

“No,”

“Well, you should,” Dean says, “This is… this is heavy duty crap, Cas. You — you gotta talk to someone about this. About how _you_ feel about it, cause I sure as shit can’t help you process it. Talk … talk to Sam if you have to. Hell, talk to Gabriel, just talk to someone. You can’t — you can’t go walking around with that in your head for months.”

“Dean, I am --”

“ -- a human being,” Dean interjects, “With emotions and feelings.”

“Why are we talking about how I feel?” Cas says, “When you ---”

“--- Cas, I can’t think about _that_ in relation to me at all, right now. I. Pretty much at the end of my fucking tether for dealing with crap tonight, so _that_ is gonna be filed under _’not gonna touch it’_ at the very least until we’re back at home, and most fucking likely with a paid proffesional, capisce?” 

“Yes, I capisce,” Castiel says, looking at his knees for a few long moments. “It wasn’t supposed to be a violation of your trust.”

“Yeah, I know, Cas,” Dean says, resting his head against the bathroom wall and breathing. In, out, in, out. “I --- it’s been pretty damn clear to me that you have my best interest at heart since I was twelve. I’m not… I’m not mad at you.”

“You should also know that I…. After your first panic attack, I started reading up on ways that survivors are able to reconnect with their sexuality. I wanted… to understand and help. I think the support group is a good idea, Dean, but I also think you should read these books --- they’re most a catalogue of experiences individual’s have had with sex after their trauma,” Castiel says, looking uneasy and a little guilty which is basically ridiculous, given that’s one of the sweetest things Dean’s ever heard.

And… it’s very _Castiel_. He’s always tackled problems by trying to intellectualise and understand them, usually trying to reason away his goddamn feelings about it until they spill out everywhere. Cas is an emotional creature at heart who’s spent a very long time trying not to be. Cas has dealt with Dean having panic attacks and not talking about it by reading a damn book and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and Dean’s dealt with it by trying to pig-headly press on as if nothing is freaking happening, until _tonight_ happened. They’re a goddamn pair.

“There’s another that's for partners of survivors, and --”

“-- Castiel,” Dean says, “Look, man, we can talk about this tomorrow, but I’m definitely not mad about it, I just --- I really wanna go to fucking bed.”

“Okay,” Cas says, offering him a hand up. He hovers close behind as Dean brushes his teeth and drinks two glasses of water and then they pad back to the second smallest bedroom, and Dean smooths out the crinkles in Castiel’s T-shirt and kisses him before they climb into bed and when they fall asleep Cas is the little spoon. 

(He wakes up twice drenched with cold sweat from nightmares, but given the total disaster that was the rest of the day Dean’s gonna take that as a win. He gets up before Cas in the morning and he emails his therapist to change their appointments from monthly to weekly for the foreseeable future, texts Sam to give him a vague update of his mental state and looks up the nearest not-women’s-only goddamn support group. It sounds like his idea of hell but, goddamn, he’s not losing this fucking battle. He’s let his baggage win for the past couple of months, and now he’s going to fucking fight back).


	4. Day 5

Dean abandoned the solo deckchair by the pool a few days ago and no one’s moved it since. He unlatches the under-the-porch storage to dig out the other chair, because it just feels freaking _wrong_ for the one to be out there alone. Cas is asleep and Dean’s hoping that he’ll be asleep for a bit longer (last night was an emotional fucking marathon; the guy needs to _rest_ ), but he still feels better with the second chair being out there.

In reality, it’s a little too cold to be sat outside, but at least this way he gets some damn space from the rest of Cas’ siblings, who have been asked him whether he’s ‘been feeling better’ with varying degrees of eyebrow raises like they know, actually, that him and Cas were having some kind of fight, even though that’s not actually what happened either. It all just makes his head hurt and he can’t be bothered with it today. He’s fed up of the lot of them. 

Obviously, Cas knows exactly where to find him, and comes out with a blanket and a piece of paper just as Dean’s debating texting Sam to give him a hard time about not telling him about the murder charges, thing. He’s mostly decided against it, because Sam was just trying to do the right thing.

“Hello Dean,” Cas says, setting the damn blanket over Dean’s thighs and hovering, still stood up. 

“Hey,” Dean smiles. Cas doesn’t ask how he slept or how he’s doing, because he freaking knows. He doesn’t look too rested or okay, either, and it looks like this is just something that they’re going to have to ride out.

“I had an idea,” Cas says, passing over the piece of paper with a concerned kind of look. Dean takes it and frowns for a moment, because… well. “We need to navigate this well.”

There’s four columns on Castiel’s sheet and the headings kind of say it all: _liked before; Alistair triggers; hopefully in the future; okay now._ Castiel has filled in some of it with his cursive, and it’s sort of dorky and perfect. The ‘liked before’ column is filled with stuff Cas has learnt over the years, from their early friendship to later games of never have I ever on the beach: _bottoming, wearing women’s underwear, causal sex, Castiel’s ‘thundering I-will-smite-you-rage’ / ‘authoritarian shtick’._ Some of the other stuff is guess work, with little question marks next to them. Cas is pretty accurate, though, with his ‘being pinned down?’ and ‘not being in the driving seat?’ on the Alistair triggers. 

“We don’t have to do this,” Cas says, as Dean takes the damn pen and starts listing all the casual touches that he’s missed in the past few months in the ‘okay now’ bit: Cas touching his knee, cuddling in bed, all that stuff. _Kissing,_ he adds. That’s always okay. “I just thought…”

“It’s good, Cas,” Dean says, offering him a smile. Cas is trying really damn hard. His idea is better than anything Dean ever came up with and, mostly, Dean’s just pleased that Cas isn’t team ‘let’s not even talk about sex until you’re in a better place’ because that’s way more likely for Dean to get frustrated and impatient and push himself. _They’re going to work this out_. They just have to communicate and it’s a lot easier to write this down than it is to talk about it. 

“Okay,” Cas says, “I’ll get you coffee.”

Cas has written ‘topping??’ on the ‘okay now’ bit, which has never actually occurred to him. He knows from years of hearing about Castiel’s sex life that bottoming isn’t his _preference,_ but that he’s got a few goes round under his belt. And, maybe that would be better. Easier. They’d have to try it, but —- yeah, he could get behind that. 

He’s got a _lot_ of material for the hopefully in the future bit, where he basically writes down every damn thing he’s ever wanted Castiel to do to him. 

And… it’s going to happen. They’re going to get there. They’ve got time.

(The ‘Alistair triggers’ list is the worst one to face but after last night and eight months of them sleeping together, Cas’ guesses are pretty freaking accurate. Dean only adds one or two things onto the list before he decides that he can think about it and add everything else later).

Castiel comes back out with his coffee quite a bit later (Dean’s guessing that he got waylaid by a sibling or two) and Dean tilts his head at him to come closer. He slips the folded up version of Cas’ update list into Cas’ back pocket, hooks his fingers in Cas’ belt hooks and pulls him into the space between Dean’s legs. 

“So,” Dean says, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Dean,” Cas says, and he settles his hands on Dean’s shoulders and smiles, and Dean smiles back even though there’s not _that_ much to smile about and… and they’re going to be okay. Dean nudges him in closer with his knees until Cas is basically in his lap and then they half make out and half just look at each other until Gabriel steps out onto the patio and interrupts them.

*

Hannah has drawn up another three ‘requests for approval for home improvements’ on Anna’s request which are all about stripping some of the rooms of their bunk beds and putting in double beds. Dean’s back aches from the shitty airbed and Castiel seems actually _offended_ about the suggestion, and Dean’s head hurts. There’s enough ‘abstainers’ (Balthazar, apparently, who just doesn’t give a shit and Hannah, who believes she has to remain completely impartial as current MP of Milton & Milton) and enough votes against (Micheal and Lucifer, as a political point) that it’s coming down to Castiel’s final vote, and Anna is getting pretty annoyed at Cas’ pigheadedness. 

Given the fact that Castiel has stopped being all whiny about the coffee machine and actually went to the effort of getting Gabriel to show him the different settings, he’d kinda thought he’d be over it.

“Cas,” Dean says, pinching his forehead, “Every single one of your siblings is an adult and half of them have other halves. We’re talking double beds here, not changing the place into a condo.”

“That’s not _the point_ ,” Castiel says, all thunder and irritation. 

“You don’t think this whole thing would’ve been improved if we weren’t sleeping on a damned airbed?” Dean asks. It’s probably the wrong thing to say, because Cas’ expression tightens and then he just _walks to_ the porch door and stalks off down to the path towards the beach. 

And… Dean really needs to get some sleep and to get out of this place because now he’s losing his mind. 

It’s probably good for Cas to have some alone time to cool off. It’s been…. A lot. The last few days have been intense and difficult and it’s probably not surprising that now Dean’s pissing him off with his usual crap, rather than the other stuff. 

“Dean,” Anna says, and there’s some implicit threat in the way that she says his name. “We’re going to visit Gabriel’s new property. It would be nice if you joined us.” 

Right. The second beach house, right next door, which Gabriel has been trying to goad Castiel into visiting ever since they got here. He’s gotten roughly the same expression that Dean _just_ got every single damn time, but Dean’s not really sure that he can get out of it now. 

“This the break his heart I’ll break your face speech?” Dean asks, after he’s followed them both out the front door and is watching Gabriel unlock the front door of the second house. From the outside, they’re pretty much identical and just far enough away to offer a little privacy. 

“Please,” Gabriel says, leaning against the door with his usual smirk. “You break his heart, Lucifer will cut you to pieces, Michael will sue you for damage, Zachariah will make sure your business goes under and Balthazar will publicly humiliate you. I’ll just put itching powder in your pants.” 

“You’ve spent way too much time thinking this through,” 

“How do you think Crowley and I ended up friends?” Gabriel asks, which is… disturbing. “Welcome to Casa Erotica: beach house edition.” 

“You’re all freaking ridiculous,” 

“True,” Gabriel says, and steps into the corridor. Gabriel’s beach house has clearly had a lot more upkeep than the original and the downstairs is mostly all one, open plan room. It’s _fancy_ actually; the kind of place that actually _seems_ like it’s owned by someone with semi-bottomless pockets and a second home. The beach house always felt lived in and scrubbed together. 

He understands why Cas would want to keep it that way and he’s not suggesting that he lets them do _this_ , he just really doesn’t wanna sleep in a bunk bed ever again. 

“What are you even gonna do with this place?” 

“Air B&B,” Gabriel says, “Anyway -- I’ve always thought you were good for him. Cassie. He’s an odd little duck, but—- you seem to get him out of his serious shell and into the the real world.” 

“And then you didn’t come to the wedding,” Anna says, and there’s that background Milton thunder, because all of them have that intimidation gene (even Gabriel can be threatening if he really wants to be). Dean’s actually pretty sure that _Anna_ wasn’t at the wedding either, but that was because Cas didn’t invite her. It was a little after her walkout to become an art therapist, and Cas didn’t have much patience for not towing _some form_ of the family line back then. 

He’s come along way. 

“Anna,” Gabriel says, voice edging on serious. 

“Look, Cas and I went all over that.” 

“Yes,” Anna says, “But he’s in love with you. He’s not _interested_ in protecting himself.” 

“What’s your angle, here?” Dean asks, stepping around the wide open space of the front room. The entire back wall of this place is windows and patio doors and if it wasn’t March and a little grey outside, the whole place would be filled with light. “Didn’t exactly work out, but I was _trying_ to talk Cas round on your home improvements shit.” 

“Yes,” Anna says, “I appreciate that.” 

It doesn’t really sound like she appreciates that. 

“Point is,” Gabriel says, “He’s our kid brother, and I know that he’s feels his feelings pretty intensely, and there’s that shit with Dad, and you two are — I don’t know, but there’s _something_ up, here, and he ain’t talking about it. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, Winchester, but I wanna know if we should be _worried_ about him.” 

The house is also completely soulless. It’s all clean white walls and ikea furniture and not a bit like the place next door, that’s always felt like home. 

Gabriel bought the damn thing so that Michael wouldn’t be able to demolish the Beach House. 

He’s obviously fucking ridiculous and a royal pain in the ass, but Gabriel and Anna are the ones that met Castiel at the beach house after a few years of asbence and they’re the ones who actually appreciate Cas making deicisons for himself and doing whatever the hell makes him happy. They’re the good ones, really. 

It figures that they didn’t buy the simple domestic takeaway from last night. From any of the Milton’s perspective, they’ve both been acting a little weird. First barely talking and ignoring each, then disappearing to the beach for a ‘walk’ and coming back a little miserable but a lot more touchy feely. Then there’s the beach picnic and their late night swim and Dean disappearing to bed at like nine pm. Cas’s mood has been all over the place and Dean hasn’t exactly been a delight. Obviously, Anna and Gabriel are concerned about it all. 

And, honestly, the thing that’s bothering Dean is that there would have been a night, months ago, that Cas decided to look up Alistair’s fate and stumbled across the information about a freaking murder charge, and Dean doesn’t know when. 

(He’s trying not to press too hard at the issue because it kick starts a roll of nausea in his gut, so he’s been opting for the strategy where he’s thinking about it if it was a hypothetical. And, hypothetically, if Dean found out his boyfriend’s abusive ex was a murderer, the first thing he’d think about is _that could have happened to him, too._ ) 

Maybe it was the night he threw out all his half edited copies of Chuck’s books and they stayed up and watched the bee documentary on the sofa, while Cas hid his face in Dean’s shoulder for most of the damn thing. Or the night where Cas rang him out of the blue at one AM and asked if he could come over, and Dean sleepily muttered his consent, and an hour later Cas had crawled into his bed and clung onto him like he was desperate and falling apart at the seams and Dean was so freaking tired and half asleep that he just let him, and in the morning Cas didn’t really wanna talk about it, so Dean just let it be. Or maybe it was some innocuous weeknight before Cas moved in that he stayed at his own place, and he didn't let Dean anywhere near it in case he asked. 

The point is, Cas was upset and he couldn’t talk to Dean about it, so he didn’t talk to freaking _anyone_ at all. 

“All right,” Dean says, “I am a little worried about him.” 

Gabriel and Anna exchange looks, and… 

_What the hell_. 

It’s a dumbass idea and Cas will be pissed at him, but Dean’s always been a little reckless and stubborn and too quick to sacrifice himself, and Cas is already a little annoyed at him over the Beach House stuff anyway. 

And, it would be good for Cas. There’s not much he wouldn’t do if it was good for Cas. 

“He’s…. I’m not exactly uh,” Dean begins, and trails off, glancing around the new beach house to find words of how to put this. He’s spent a lot of summers with Anna and Gabriel, but they don’t really know him. They know _about him_ and they know him through the lense of Castiel, but they were always pretty private. Sat out on the deckchairs while everyone else hung out at the beach. 

“I’m not the easiest person to be in a relationship with, especially right now, and I guess he thinks talking about it is some… violation of trust, but…” 

It’s easier to shuck up his shirt to show the scars there, the cross crossing lines of _worthless_ across his hips, and then he drops it back down. 

(He _hates_ watching people react to this whole thing but he’s made up his fucking mind, so that’s that). 

“My ex,” Dean supplies, “That’s… where I was a lot of our friendship hiatus. And, as a result, I’m… a little fucked in the head. Cas is great. He’s… he’s _awesome_ , but… I can’t — he needs to talk to someone about it, and I can’t do that.” 

Gabriel exhales and takes a seat. 

“Why are you telling us this?” Anna asks. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dean says, “I don’t wanna have this conversation with either of you, but you — you gotta make sure that he’s dealing. I don’t. I don’t want him bottling shit up.” 

“What do you mean by ‘especially right now’?” Anna asks, voice even. 

“Ah, Jesus, Dean says. “Just —- you know, the usual survivor bullshit.” 

“PTSD.” 

Right, Anna the art therapist. He should have seen that coming; the classic Milton need to understand the problem without the same desire for treading sensitively around the subject as Cas has, because of lack of personal investment. Cas probably labelled him with that about the same time he started using the rape label in the confines of his own head, but he’s never tried to use them _to_ Dean. Dean _does_ have that written on a prescription pad somewhere, the first year after where he opted for sertraline before he could face actual therapy, and it’s not that it’s…. Wrong. It’s just that he’s always found those shitty labels are for other people to be able to point at something and think they understand what’s going on his head, and _they don’t_.

And before all this came up recently, he was an approximation of okay. He wouldn’t have said he had a disorder. He’d have said that a lot of bad shit happened to him, and some it left its mark; the mental equivalent of some old injury playing up in cold weather, and having an intermittent limp. 

But as a selection of experiences, side effects and symptoms, it’s not _inaccurate_. 

“Yeah,” Dean exhales, “Yeah, that more or less sums it up.” 

“And — you’re getting help?” 

“I am up to my _ass_ in help,” Dean says, “But some of that crap bleeds through. This last couple of days… I’ve had a couple of, uh, flashbacks and panic attacks, I guess, and we’ve had some pretty intense conversations about how we’re gonna deal. We’re okay and it _aint_ Cas’s responsibility, but --- it complicates things.” 

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel says, looking about as serious as he did at the funeral. It’s always a little jarring to see Gabriel slip over into serious. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, “Well. Shit happens and I really _do not_ wanna talk about this with either of you basically ever again, but. I’d rather you knew about this shit and could make sure that Cas is dealing, so there you go. He --- I told him to talk to you about some of the gritty details anyway, but I can’t get into this right now. So that’s the deal. He can tell you whatever he wants but to my face, you don’t know a damn thing.”

“That seems like a good deal,” Gabriel says.

“But you also know full fucking well how much I care about him, so you can leave your goddamn posturing, too,” Dean says, “I’m all in, so you better get used to be being around, cause I’m pretty damn sure Cas aint gonna change his mind about this.” 

“See this,” Gabriel says with his usual shit eating grin, “Is why I’ve always liked you, Winchester.”

“Asshole,” Dean mutters with an eye roll, and then Gabriel and Anna show him the rest of the the new beach house.

(As it turns out, both Gabriel and Anna have been sneaking off here to sleep in the king size beds every night. Dean would respect that if Gabriel hadn’t gotten that master bedroom in the initial randomized room allocation, which means that they’ve been sleeping on that shitty little airbed for no reason at all. Gabriel just laughed in his face and said that he’d been hoping it would Cas more likely to vote yes on the new beds in the beach house and that if Dean can get him to sign they’re welcome to take the room. Dean was pretty colourful with his response, which only made him laugh).

*

Sam calls him just as they’re stepping out onto the concrete patio at the back of Gabriel’s new acquisition. It’s a little weird _not_ to be met by the familiar creak of wood under foot but, objectively, Dean’s pretty sure that the owners had a good idea, because it’s a lot more solid and turns seamlessly into this freaking beautiful two tiered pool that kinda makes look the Beach House pool look like an oversized puddle. 

“Better take this,” Dean says, frowning at his phone. He’s not really expecting Sam to call given Dean’s been pretty forthcoming with updates about what’s going on via text and Sam would generally only call him if he was pretty sure that Dean was hiding stuff from him, worried, or talking him down from doing something stupid.

“We’ll meet you back at the house,” Anna says, glancing in Gabriel’s direction. They’re probably gonna sit and talk about Dean’s issues for however long, but it doesn’t matter. It’ll be good for Cas for him to have someone who checks in with how he’s doing with it all. Someone with only Cas’ interests at heart.

“Roger that,” Dean says, “Hey Sam.”

“Hey,” Sam says. His voice is all twisted with concern. “Cas said I should call you.”

Dean rolls his eyes and sets off down the path to the beach. It must be directly parallel to the other one and is the only part of the place which is identical, so it's disconcerting to see a different patch of beach at the end of the path.

“Course he did,” Dean mutters with an eye roll, “Jackass.” 

“Are you fighting?”

“Nah,” Dean says, “Was just a little insensitive about the Beach House improvements squad and he stormed off but is still, apparently, concerned about my emotional wellbeing.”

“Dean.”

“I’m okay, Sam. Cas is just worried cause we had a heavy night last night.”

“Heavy how?”

“Not all of my life is your business.”

“Dean,” Sam says, “I’m hard wired to worry about you.” 

And, the thing is, when your brother gets a call from a hospital saying that the brother that you haven’t seen for nearly a year has been found cut up and beaten up, a hundred miles from where you thought he was, and when everything comes out in the wash it turns out that this has had been going on for a long time before that, too, it kind of means that you’re gonna worry for the rest of your damn life. Dean sort of lost his right to privacy, in some ways, because Sam stepped into the gap. 

They had a conversation a few weeks into that period of time where Sam took a break from school (kid was so far ahead that it didn’t actually make any difference to when he graduated) to be Dean’s quasi-therapist, half lawyer and brother all at the same time, where Dean was too broken to do anything much for himself, where they made a pact that Dean’s usual bravado and posturing had to fucking stop, and that he had to tell Sammy everything so that he knew how to help. 

Dean exhales.

“I just — what we talked about before.”

“Sex?” 

“It’s looking like that’s off the table for a while,”” Dean says, “We — I had another panic attack.”

“You haven’t had this many for a while.” Sam says. It’s probably a couple of years, actually, which is part of the reason why all of this is goddamn frustrating. Still, recovery is slow and the reality is that he’s happier than he’s been since any of it happened and that’s why all of this is creeping in again. He’d accepted that he was gonna be a little miserable, before, and he’s not prepared to do that anymore. He’s not gonna let this take shit he wants away from him. 

“Yeah, well. I realised some things.”

“Things,” Sam repeats. 

It’s windy and there’s not a lot of cover at the point of the beach that the path spilled out onto. There’s a bite to the air, too, and he only bought his leather jacket. This feels like it’s gonna be a long enough conversation that he should try and do _something_ to stop himself freezing to death, so he starts to walk back along the beach in the direction of the house.

He doesn’t really know how to have this conversation. He’s not really sure that he’s sifted any of out in his head yet. 

“You…. I was sleeping with Alistair right up until that motel cleaner found me.”

“Yeah,” 

“What do you mean, yeah?”

“I mean,” Sam exhales, “Dean, the hospital pretty much gave me a full report on your everything. They didn’t wanna miss any potential injuries. And they… they knew they were gonna be passing a report to the cops and didn’t wanna miss any…. evidence, so they checked _everything_.”

He has to stop walking to process that.

“Well _that_ is humiliating.”

“Dean,”

“Whatever,” Dean says, shaking himself back into motion. Of all the crap that went down, that’s not the thing to obsess over. “ I’m just glad that I changed you to be my next of kin the second you turned eighteen. If they’d given that information to _Dad…_ ”

Sam almost laughs.

“I don’t think they were supposed to give it to me, but I was a little crazy, and I knew that Alistair had been your — boyfriend.”

“Strong way of putting it, but okay.” Dean says, “And what did this little report say?”

“Dean,”

“Honesty is a two way fucking street.”

“That you… it said there was evidence you’d had sex recently, but no physical evidence of sexual assault.”

“ _That_ why you stayed away from that whole clusterfuck?” Dean asks.

“Dean.”

“I know what you think, Sam. That whole _you can’t consent if you can’t say no,_ shit. And you were pretty hellbent on putting him away, but you never asked me about it. That cause of some medical report?”

“No,” Sam says, “Dean, I don’t know how much you remember about that first year because you were pretty out of it, but my priority was pretty much to make sure you didn’t have to testify in court, in front of Alistair. The GBH charge was the easiest thing we could stick to him without dragging you into it too much. And I pretty much figured you didn’t wanna talk about it.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“So you realized some things,” Sam prompts. 

“Dog with a fucking bone,” Dean says, “Look, I don’t know how I feel about this, but we had a pretty freaking shitty conversation about _why_ sex is a trigger from me and it’s become pretty clear that I’ve gotta work that stuff out in my head before sex is back on the table. Cas has been fucking great, as per usual,” Dean says. “He’s been reading _how to_ books about sex after trauma on the sly and flat out refused to say whether or not he’d call what Alistair did to me was rape because he thinks I need to label my experiences myself. He’s — you know, basically perfect.”

“He’s Cas,” Sam says, which Dean considers to be the same thing.

“He, uh. inadvertently let slip he’d looked up Alistair and he… he told me about the murder charges.”

Sam exhales 

“I made him, Sammy. He didn’t want to.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Dean says, “Not exactly. But it’s gonna take more than that to keep me down, and, uh, mostly I’m worried about Cas. Been sat on that for months. So. Just spilled my guts to Gabe and Anna so at least someone would check in with him and make sure he’s okay.” 

“So, yeah,” Sam says, “A heavy night.” 

“Heavy goddamn life,” Dean says, sitting down against ‘the cliff edge’ where there’s a little bit of wind cover and looking at his knees. “Thanks,” Dean begins, “For all of it. Spending time with the freaking Miltons pretty much cements the fact that I have the best little brother ever.”

“Awh, Dean, getting all sentimental.”

“Piss off,” Dean says, “Hey, did I tell you Gabriel bought the damn house next door?” Dean asks and that sparks a conversation about Gabriel’s itching powder threat and that turns into which of the Miltons they'd rather face in a fight and they spend the next twenty minutes chatting crap on the beach, and it’s good.

*

Castiel seeks him out at the point where Dean’s toes have gone numb in his shoes and he’s just beginning to consider walking back up to the house. 

“I’ve spoken to Gabriel and Anna,” Castiel says, sitting down heavily next to him. He doesn’t look very happy about it, which is about what Dean was expecting, but he’s not sorry. “You didn’t have to do that,” Cas says, even and serious.

“Yep, I know,” Dean says, “But you gotta fucking talk to someone, Castiel.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make.” 

“Well I’m an obstinate pain in the ass,” Dean says, “You don’t wanna talk to them — talk to someone else, but, Cas, I can’t _help you_ with this , and I’m not letting it hurt you.”

“It hurts me because I care about you.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, “But I’m not gonna let you obsess about it for the rest of your damn life, or get convinced that if you — if you’d called me after I didn’t turn at your wedding everything would be different, or something like that. I don’t want you up at night thinking that I might’ve been found under a fucking porch.”

“I shouldn’t have told you about that.” 

“Yeah you should,” Dean says, “I didn’t give you a choice and, you know what, for a long damn time I wondered if I was _overreacting_ and —- it turns out I wasn’t. This self preservation submission shit feels a lot more reasonable when I know, I know that I—- I wasn’t crazy to be fucking terrified of him, I was dead on, and — I’m _okay._ I am _safe_ and that is what is important about this, Castiel, and I — look, Cas, I wanna be there for you, all the damn way, and I want —- I want us to buy a fucking house with a white picket fence and goddamn marry you, if you want, and to spend every damn summer in this place sleeping on a freaking airbed if it makes you happy, and I _hate_ that I can’t help you with dealing with _me_ , so I outsourced and I’m not fucking sorry. You did the same thing, calling Sam like he’s my damn minder.”

“Your brother is important to you.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, “He is. And you know what? My one condition for first going to freaking therapy was that he went and talked about what was going on too, because I’m not selfish enough not to see that this affects other people, too. Sam had to deal with a _lot_ of bullcrap that first year and he was pretty freaking scared, too.” 

“Dean, I am okay.” 

“No you’re not,” Dean snaps, “And if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t be okay either. Cas. I know that you’re crazy in love with me, I’m just asking you to be sensible about your own welfare. If I have to fucking do it, so do you.” 

“I don’t know why we’re having an argument about this.” 

“No, me neither,” Dean exhales, “Maybe we’re just running out of shit to talk about.”

Cas half smiles. 

“Obviously, I want —- that. The house. To marry you. Summers.” 

“Awesome. That’s settled then.” 

“I’m not going dutch on a house deposit when I have the means to pay for it outright,” Cas says, “You _will_ have to get over your aversion to my money.” 

“Somewhere, there's a parallel universe where we made different choices and that’s the biggest problem in our relationship.” 

“Dean,” 

It used to feel so damn important, but… A lot of this has put a lot of things into perspective. 

“You can pay for our damn house,” Dean says, “But we’re not having a freaking beach house, too.” 

“I think you’re underestimating the prices of property this close to the coast in this area. If we did that, we would be broke.” 

“How ---? You know what,” Dean says, “Don’t tell me, cause it’ll just ruin it. Hey. How come _Gabe_ can buy however many beach front properties? He get extra lucky with his trust fund or what?”

“No,” Cas says, “He made very good financial investments.”

“What?” Dean asks.

“He made a lot of money on the stock markets.”

“ _Gabriel_? Bought three freaking houses on a whim, Gabriel?” 

“He’s renting them out for three thousand dollars a night, Dean. He’s booked solidly for the next year.”

“Ho _ly_ shit,” Dean says.

“People underestimate him because he’s short,” Castiel says, completely fucking seriously. Dean snorts and threads their fingers together. “I… I will talk to him...about this.”

“Good,” Dean says and squeezes his hand. “Cas, about the Beach House improvements… man, I shouldn’t have gotten involved. It’s nothing to do with me. You --- it’s your dad’s house and they’re your memories.”

“I signed it,” Cas says, “My father didn’t neglect painting the front of the house or fixing the porch because he was trying to preserve the Beach House charm, he did it because he was lazy and disorganised. At the end of every summer he’d write a list of things that he would fix for next year and then he would lose it. It is… pointless to preserve the place as a shrine to him, because he is dead.”

“You just like the new coffee machine,” Dean smiles, nudging him with his shoulder.

Cas’ expression breaks into a smile.

“Yes,” Cas says, “I do.” 

“I’m… you shouldn’t let Gabe turn it into one of his freaking Air BnBs.”

“No,” Cas says, “But. This place has always been a place of sanctuary and rest to me. Discomforting everyone because I miss my father is --- ludicrous.”

“It’s understandable.”

“It’s illogical,”

“It’s _grief_ , Cas.”

“Next time we are here, I would like us to have an actual bed,” Cas says, “And we will reattempt sex on the beach.”

“Well, Gabe isn’t actually staying here, so we can take the damn master tonight. And hell yeah on the other thing. ”

“No,” Cas says, “That’s what I came out here to say to you. I want to go home,” Cas says, achingly sincere, in a way that kind of hurts. Cas has had a lot to deal with these past few days. His brothers; the anniversary of Chuck’s death; finding out that he’s gonna be abstinent for while (not the he cares about that) and holding Dean while he fucking sobbed into his arms. 

Castiel looks out over the sea.

“I know we’re supposed to stay a few more days but… I am very tired and I don’t like the Beach House in Winter and… I am exceptionally fed up with listening to Zachariah’s snoring and the _bickering_ and the fact that --- my brothers are insensitive assesses. Being here isn’t very helpful for you right now and… I don’t believe that I owe it to any of them to stay any longer. I have _done my bit_.”

“Yeah,”

“Dean,” Cas says, looking at him with their hands clasped together, tight. “Take me home.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Dean throws back and they leave the beach, together, just as it starts to rain.


End file.
